


Degrees of Separation

by Wanderer (Straggler)



Series: Wait for the Dust to Settle [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (but they don't last), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Gen, Hunter Stiles Stilinski, Kidnapping, Minor Character Deaths, Multiple OC's, POV Derek, POV Stiles, Self-Discovery, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straggler/pseuds/Wanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Stilinski doesn't wait the full 24 hours before he puts up a missing persons’ report for his 5 year old son. He uses his connections and his position in the police department to get it done, to announce to the whole county that his boy is gone and he needs help to bring him back home.</p><p>Three months later his son’s case is no longer considered priority enough to expend that much man-power but that doesn’t stop John from spending every second of every minute he has available searching for his boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress with an estimation of somewhere between 8-10 chapters and an epilogue included at the end. Unfortunately, this story hasn't been beta read so there's going to be a few mistakes here and there concerning spelling, grammar, sentence structure, overuse of commas and so on and so on. If you see any horrendous errors please let me know and I'll get around to correcting it, THANK YOU!
> 
> Alright, so, this story is set in a world where everything is, more or less, exactly the same with the exception that Stiles isn't involved in anything at all because he wasn't there. He pops up eventually as Dylan, so, there's that.

 

It’s August and there’s a school that’s less one student, a boy who’s missing a friend, and a family sharing a hole in their heart where their son used to be.

\-----

**Chapter 1**

\-----

The forest is thinning around him and he knows that within a few hundred yards he’ll be running straight out of the woods and into the industrial park that’s been years out of business and no longer in use. It’s not ideal; he’d rather be under the cover of trees than in a building with corrugated steel walls surrounding him on all sides, but it’s the only option he has for now.

There are four distinct heartbeats behind him, all coming towards his direction with different gaits and closing in on him. They all smell of sweat, metal, leather and worst of all, wolfsbane.

He climbs over a dilapidated fence in two bounds and lands on the other side completely exposed with nothing to offer him any measure of concealment. He doesn’t look behind him, doesn’t need to as he hurries across the clearway towards the warehouse with its door ajar. He knows they’re close based on the thuds of their heartbeat in his ear and the strengthening smell of wolfsbane following after him.

The warehouse is mostly empty, which is both more and less than what he’d originally expected, with one more door on the opposite side and another leading into what seems like an office. All that’s left behind from the rundown business are some rusty steel pipes, pieces of I-beams of varying sizes either too small or too old to be reused and rows of storage shelves in different stages of decay. He sees a few chains hanging from the tall ceiling, too high for a normal human to jump up and grab onto but well within his reaches. He climbs as quickly as he can, pulls the chains up with him to lie over the steel panels, hides in the shadows and quiets down in time to see his chasers enter the building.

They’re silent in their approach and cautious as they scan the rows and rows of shelving, one low on the ground to check for shadows out of place while the others take turn spotting. They do this for the entirety of the warehouse, a task which takes the better part of 10 minutes and he hopes it’s enough time for their suspicions that he might still be in the building to be put to rest. Sure enough they leave the same way they enter but not before throwing in three cartridges and closing the door behind them.

He doesn’t get a chance to react before an explosion shatters his hearing and the subsequent flash blinds him, making him stumble off the beams until he’s falling backwards, crashing heavily on top of the shelves, the sides of the metal digging into the small of his back, and falling off to land awkwardly in a pile of limbs on the ground. He can’t see and he can’t hear anything past the ringing in his ears, knows there’s blood trailing down the sides of his face. He wills the pain to subside and tries to get back up on his feet only to barely manage a crouch when one leg refuses to cooperate.

He’s been shot.

He can feel the muscles on his leg contracting, twitching in a way he can’t control. It’s not a major artery – a godsend if he believed in one – but it’s a hurt worse than the fall and a dizzying mix with the three flash-bang grenades he’d just witnessed. His hearing and sight is coming back in small increments, too slow for his liking but enough that he can catch muffled conversation and vague outlines.

The thing about hunters is that they get cocky, especially when they’ve all but surrounded a lone werewolf that’s already been shot with a bullet liberally coated and filled with wolfsbane. They think it’s endgame. He uses this stereotype to his advantage; after all, what they think they’ve got is just another werewolf, what they don’t know is that he’s an Alpha.

‘Who wants the next shot?’ The hunter standing closest to his injured leg says with a wicked chuckle.

He becomes the first victim of four, sporting deep gashes across his jugular and spraying arterial blood in a wide arc. Shots are fired before the body hits the ground.

It’s chaos and a howl is ripped from him when another bullet is lodged into the meat of his shoulder. He knows the pack won’t reach him in time but it doesn’t make him helpless, it doesn’t mean he’s not capable of holding his own as he picks up one of the smaller I-beams and pitches it at the hunter he knows is hiding behind a stack of rotten crates, reloading a magazine. It breaks through easily, knocks the man off his feet as he crashes into a shelf, the rusty steel of it making a resounding twang and crack as it makes impact with the skull.

There are two more elevated heartbeats within the building, the third slowing in its unconscious state. He can’t tell their positions – his inner ear making it difficult to guesstimate certain distances – but he’s got a lead with the surrounding environment.

As he pushes against the wall and uses his feet to send one shelf to topple against the other he can hear an echo of howls in the far distance but the call is eventually lost in the resounding crash. His injured shoulder and leg protests but the sound of metal creaking and colliding onto a man whose voice cuts off abruptly is enough adrenaline to stave off the pain he feels running through his nerves, at least by a small amount. The floor is still rumbling beneath his feet as he edges towards the door closest to him. There are two sluggish heartbeats when he leaves the building behind him but the last hunter is gone. He can’t see him or hear him. He can’t smell him through the spilled blood, the tang of metal, burnt gunpowder and wolfsbane lingering in the air.

There’s a gaping hole in the fence where the hunters had cut through the wires and he’s glad it’s there for him to use as he limps across the clearway towards much appreciated cover within the woods. His ears strain for any sign of the last hunter but there’s no other heartbeat within range to be wary of. The winds carry nothing but the sound of rustling leaves, the shake of old metal and an audible snip of a safety being clicked off. He freezes in his steps and feels the air being punched out of his lungs as he takes multiple stumbling steps forwards before falling onto his side. It burns and he can’t help the choke he feels in his throat as he looks down at the sizeable bullet hole in his chest while his ears listen to the last hunter coming closer and closer to where he lay.

‘Looks like I’ll be having the last shot,’ the man is saying, his voice radiating anger, hate and vindication.

Blood is spilling from his mouth, mixed with rivulets of black as the accumulated wolfsbane works through his body to systematically shut down every muscle tissue and vital organ. He’s going to die and his approaching pack will bear witness to it.

The hunter is taking aim, pointing the barrel of the gun straight to his forehead; an unsurvivable blow. He doesn’t close his eyes, refuses to be cowed even if he can’t stop his body from shaking.

There’s the sound of breaking twigs somewhere in the woods behind him, followed by huffs and deep breaths. He can hear several heartbeats and several more footsteps drawing closer to meet him in the middle. There’s a pop of a button, a quiet swish of fabric and a harsh crack of a skull being knocked upon with excessive force.

The man falls to a crumpled heap at his feet, landing on his sniper rifle hard enough to snap off the scope. A boy stands in the man’s place with a gun in his hand, smelling strongly of sweat, gun oil and more wolfsbane. The boy is no older than the rest of his pack and he’s slow, cautious, when he crouches down to the unconscious man, their eyes never leaving each other as he digs through the pockets to pull up a spare magazine as well as a lighter. Both of them land within arm’s reach.

He’s confused, to say the least, as he eyes the items and only looks up in time to see the boy cable tie the man’s arms and legs together with quick efficiency before dragging the body off with a strength that belies his slight build. They’re halfway across the site before four more people join him at his side.

‘Leave him,’ he finds himself saying with a gurgle and a hacking cough when two of his betas almost run off after them. They stop in their tracks, reluctance evident in their postures as they trade stares with each other before turning to look at the backs of the fleeing men. ‘There’s three more in the warehouse; check them,’ he tells them while the two other betas work on burning the wolfsbane and applying them onto his body. He doesn’t know which one knocks him out, whether it’s the bullet wound that went through his back and chest, the one in his shoulder or the first shot at his leg.

He doesn’t ask.

\--

‘They’re dead,’ Isaac informs him as soon as he wakes up, ‘the three guys in the warehouse.’

Based on the height of the ceiling and the familiar smells surrounding him he knows they’re back in the train depot. They can’t stay here, not anymore, not with the windows shattered and multiple bullet casings littering the floor.

 ‘What about the two others?’ Derek grimaces as he sits up with a grunt, still feeling the aches in his back, chest, shoulder and leg. He doesn’t know how much time has passed since his stint at the industrial park but he doubts it’s been more than a couple of hours.

The curly-haired blond stops fiddling with the lighter in his hands, fingers poised over the carved initials of E.J, and looks at him with a bemused expression. ‘You told us to leave them.’

‘Good,’ he says before Isaac gets the wrong impression. He wants to tell them that the boy, the same boy who cable tied a man twice his age and dragged away like a prisoner, was the one who gave him the lighter and the magazine, both of which were vital to his survival, but he’s not sure if the boy helping out was a one-time deal only or if it’s something else.

He lets it go.

‘Do you know them?’

‘No,’ Derek doesn’t elaborate as he picks up the magazine from the table next to Isaac and feels the weight of it in his hand. It’s still heavy, guesses there’s at least nine more unused cartridges. ‘What did you do with the bodies?’

‘We buried them in the cemetery, in the new expansion. Erica took the guns and crossbows, left them in storage.’

He nods as he hands over the magazine for Isaac to take. ‘Put this with the others; change the combination on the lock once you’re done.’ He doesn’t wait for Isaac to leave before he’s taking off his bloodied clothes, smelling strongly of wolfsbane, and throwing them into a metal drum. As soon as he’s changed he starts packing all his essentials into a duffel bag, a task that takes him little to no time.

There’s nothing in the depot to tell him what time it is but he can assume that it’s well past midnight so he knows Erica, Boyd and Scott are all home by now, preparing for the next school day or sleeping off the night’s recent attack on them.

It takes Isaac 15 minutes to come back, another five for him to pack his own bag and a few minutes for a quick sweep of the area for double-checking before leaving the building behind them. Derek rents a motel room located on the other side of town, about 20 minutes away from school by bike. It’s just short term, only a week; enough time for Derek to find a new place of stay.

Hopefully, enough time to deal with the sudden influx of hunters in Beacon Hills, too.

\-----

The man doesn’t wake, not even after all the dragging, the rough handling, or the uncomfortable tightness of the cable ties digging into his skin. He doesn’t wake even after they’re cut loose only for his wrists and ankles to be refastened onto a chair. The man doesn’t wake, but Dylan can be patient when he needs to be.

He’s come too far for all his efforts to go to waste.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

There’s a man standing at the foot of a grave where his late wife now lies. They tell him to have one for his son, too, but he doesn’t want one. He doesn’t believe that his son is dead, not even after all these years.

His wife believed this, too, right to her very last breath.

\-----

**Chapter 2**

\-----

He’s not here for the regular business of dealing with werewolves – he’s got his laptop propped open in front of him just waiting for a number to pop back on the grid – but he’s got enough information about the local pack to know that they won’t be much of a threat to him, if only because they’re mostly made up of a bunch of newly turned _teenagers_ and their Alpha is barely out of his teen years, too.

They’re wet behind the ears and it’s obvious the Alpha is just fresh out of werewolf school or, maybe, he never graduated from it, what with the way he handles them and the way the Betas react to his authority.

It’s none of his business – he’s not here for them – but the lack of cohesion within the pack is bound to set off problems sooner or later. He just hopes they won’t get in his way.

Nothing shows up on his laptop; he’s still stuck with the last known location of the number showing up somewhere in Beacon Hills but the county, despite it being a small town with only one high school, is too large for him to be able to properly sift things out without gathering too many false leads.

It took three days with the hunter, three days better spent elsewhere, before the man’s delirious with hunger and dehydration and pain enough to tell him the location of where they’re staying. It’s a motel room fitted with two double beds, one pull-out sofa and a spare mattress on the floor. They’ve got a single laptop, sparse notes written in amateur code surrounding the local pack and a duffle bag stuffed with cases of cartridges, flash-bang grenades and tools, well-used and well looked after, to make their own bullets.

The laptop doesn’t hold much information, just the basics; spreadsheets of local packs in other areas within California dead or alive (mostly dead), as well as detailed notes on a rumored pack of Alphas that are both too little and too contradictory. There are more documents within the laptop with light encryption on them for protection but none of them are what he’s after and it becomes another dead-end in a line of dead-ends. He takes everything with him and leaves nothing behind. The room’s a bit messy but he’s not a housekeeper so he leaves it, throwing the keys on top of the double bed closest to him and locking the door behind him.

The hunters were bottom tier; small fish, basically, so even if he wanted more information he doubts he’ll be able to extract it from the man he’s got still tied up in a cabin on the outskirts of Beacon Hills.

He’s got the ground lined with mountain ash and another line hidden under the floorboards surrounding the man he knocked unconscious before leaving to chase another lead. The mountain ash isn’t to protect the man from werewolves that might kill him if they ever find him. No, that’s his job.

It takes two hours, roughly, to get from town to the cabin; an hour and a half on the road and another half on rough terrain that’s putting the suspension on his rented car through a good workout. He thinks he’ll lose the bond at this point but losing a few bucks means nothing to him in the long run.

The sandwiches he’s got in his backpack are soggy by now but to a starving man they might as well be a steak with a side of fries and salad.

The line outside the cabin is uninterrupted when he checks the perimeter and the man is already awake when he comes in through the door. He’s got a sneer on his face but his gaze falters when Dylan slings the backpack in front of him to pull out the bacon and egg sandwiches to put on the man’s lap.

‘You get temporary use of your arm,’ as thanks for spilling the beans, he doesn’t say. What little of it, anyway.

The cable tie is cut with a flick of his knife and the man winces as he rubs his reddened wrist along his overgrown beard for relief but his hunger wins out over the pain as he maneuvers and fumbles the food out of the plastic and into his mouth. He’s loud while he eats and finishes the entire thing in less than a minute, lips smacking to chase the taste on his tongue.

‘You got anymore?’ He asks with a hoarse voice, eager but reluctant.

He shrugs. ‘Sure,’ he says as he pulls out another sandwich from his bag, an egg salad this time. After all, who is he to deprive a man of his last meal?

\--

Beacon Hills isn’t a place for tourists – there’s nothing here noteworthy enough to put the county on the map – so he knows something’s up when six numbers of varying origins suddenly ping on his laptop late into the night. They could just be passing through for all he knows but after the second night of them going in and out of the preserve he knows he’s got another lead coming his way.

He packs light – two knives, two guns (one with wolfsbane bullets and the other without) and a pocketful of mountain ash – before leaving the sparse apartment he decided to rent after having stayed in Beacon Hills for over two weeks. The pros of living in an apartment is that he gets more wall space for his charts, diagrams and notes; freedom of privacy without having to deal with the cleaners after being denied entry for weeks in a row, afraid the accumulated mess inside won’t be worth the minimum wage they’re paid for. The negativity of it is that he starts to feel stagnant from being tied down to one place for too long. It was fine moving from one motel room to another but after a while of constantly packing and unpacking he decided it was too much of a monumental waste of his time.

As soon as he gets into the car he slips on a heavy jacket to help ward off the cold. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be out for and he doesn’t fancy getting sick or shivering in his bones until his teeth chatter loud enough that even a normal human can hear him from a mile away. He considers putting on a pair of gloves but he doesn’t like the feeling of them impeding his hands, even though the ones he purchased are fingerless. He keeps them in his jacket pocket just in case.

He syncs his laptop’s GPS onto his phone tracking the four numbers that disappeared off the grid near the woods while the other two are located somewhere in the middle of town. They were moving in a north-easterly direction towards the river last he checked, close and within running distance of each other but spanning across several hundred yards between each person. What for, he doesn’t know. Frankly, he doesn’t care. What he wants is information and with the night being a new moon he hopes the cover of darkness will help him for what he needs to do next.

He also hopes that with the new moon the werewolves will stay away.

The drive is short. He parks at a grocery store and leaves the car there to travel the rest of the distance on foot. As soon as he's a few hundred feet into the preserve he takes out the mountain ash from his pocket and sprinkles it over his person, believing that his scent won't be carried off into the winds. The walk into the woods takes almost half an hour before he’s close enough to pick up hushed whispers and breaking twigs. He keeps walking with an added level of attention to where he’s stepping until he’s behind a tree trunk large enough to obscure him. He tries to listen to the one-sided conversation but it’s too far to catch any distinct words. That is, until the hunter changes his direction and starts heading his way, back towards the main road.

He doesn’t panic – not every hunter knows who he is but that knowledge doesn’t stop his heart from beating an increased tempo. The man isn’t too far from him now, just a mere fifty or so yards away and talking to thin air about dinner options. He unholsters a gun, the one not meant for wolves, keeps his hand steady with a finger on the safety while listening to the man make suggestions on whether to get Thai food or Chinese takeaway when he unexpectedly stops talking and starts running. Dylan is confused for all of two seconds until shots are suddenly ringing through the preserve followed by shouts, roars and an unmistakable scream of someone dying, abruptly cut off at its apex.

So much for werewolves staying out of trouble during the new moon.

The grip he has on his gun tightens and he ducks low on the ground while his eyes search out for the tell-tale flash of a gun being fired. It’s close; that much he can guess through hearing alone. He doesn’t realize how close he is until one of the wolves is running past him clutching an arm and gritting their fangs as they try to get away from the skirmish. He clicks the safety off in time to see two other hunters follow after the werewolf, one reloading their gun while another fits another bolt onto their crossbow. Dylan doesn’t hesitate to shoot down the one with the gun.

The werewolf stops running the same time the hunter does, both confused for different reasons, but bright yellow eyes find him sooner than the man who’s still staring down at the body of his fallen teammate. Dylan fires off another shot, this time into the shoulder, and he watches as the man drop the crossbow with a pained cry and tries to get the gun he has stuffed between his belt and pants. He shoots at the man’s fingers for his trouble.

His scream is loud in the stillness of the night and Dylan is wary of the werewolf less than a hundred yards from him as he makes his way towards the hunter with the bleeding arm and missing fingers.

‘Who the fuc—’ the man doesn’t get to finish before Dylan is knocking him out with the butt of his gun, saving him the misery of having to suffer through his injuries.

There are no more sounds in the woods behind him. No scuffles, growls or weapons discharge of any sort. The lack of noise worries him and he wonders how many werewolves there are in the immediate vicinity right this second. He can’t see or hear them but he knows they’ll have no problem seeing or hearing him.

He keeps the werewolf in his peripherals while digging through the pockets of the unconscious man for a spare magazine while his other hand is still clenched around the handle of his gun. He knows they’re not a threat to him but werewolves are still faster, stronger and all around more dangerous with their claws than he is with a dozen weapons. He tosses the spare as soon as he finds it and the werewolf catches it with his uninjured arm. He’s about to start for a lighter when the werewolf speaks.

‘I’ve got a lighter, if that’s what you’re after,’ he says with a wince, voice rough as if he’d been howling himself hoarse, as he takes out the item from the pocket of his jeans.

It’s the same lighter as the one he tossed to the first werewolf he met the other night. He knows it’s the same one because of the initials E.J carved onto the side of it.

‘Better hurry with it, then,’ Dylan tells him as he takes out two cable ties from his back pocket and quickly works on the legs and arms of the knocked-out hunter, the gun leaving his hand for no more than a few seconds as he works the plastic until they’re tight.

‘No, but seriously, who are you?’

‘It’s not your concern.’

‘It is when this is the second group of hunters that’s come into Beacon Hills in less than 2 weeks,’ a new voice speaks from behind him.

Dylan doesn’t startle but the uptick of his heart gives him away. He turns slowly and steps away from the hunters lying on the ground so he can have a clear view of both werewolves. He feels trapped though, regardless of the open air around him.

He recognizes the second werewolf as the one he helped the other night – the Alpha. He wants to be jealous of their healing capabilities but the trade-off doesn’t seem entirely worth it. Not to him, anyway. Who wants to be at the brink of death only to heal and have it repeat weeks or even days later when another group of hunters decide to come by? Definitely not worth it.

‘If you know something then please tell us,’ another voice says, feminine this time, and he turns his head in her direction just as she’s coming up from behind a grouping of trees. She’s holding a compound bow, her own, and armed to the teeth with bolts, knives and something that looks suspiciously like a taser. It takes him a moment for him to realize that she’s unlike the rest.

‘You’re human?’ It slips from his mouth in clear surprise. The grip he has on his gun loosens momentarily, though he renews his hold and keeps the finger off the trigger.

‘I am,’ she pauses and in the next second is lowering her bow, palms facing out and away from her body. There’s a hiss of her name coming from somewhere close by but he takes the show of non-violence for what it is. He’s still not comfortable – there’s probably a few more werewolves out there hiding in the shadows – but he’s willing to compromise.

He mimics her as he lowers his gun to the floor, making sure that the safety is clicked back on before standing up again.

‘My name is Allison,’ she introduces herself.

‘I didn’t know we’re having an icebreaker session,’ he quips, catches a snort and a chuckle from the wolf with the lighter who’s now looking more human than he did before, although he’s still bleeding and clutching his arm in a tight grip. He’s almost pleased with the sound; he hasn’t made anyone laugh in a long time – but he squishes the feeling down and shrugs indifferently. ‘I’m Dylan, but you might want to hold off the rest of the introductions. He doesn’t look too good,’ he says as he points at the boy, suddenly shaking like he’s coming down with a fever.

The first werewolf he met the other night is the one who moves forward, helps the boy’s balance before he falls flat on his ass. He’s gentle as he lowers him to the ground and takes the magazine from the boy’s shaking hands.

‘How many,’ he asks in a low voice, a rumble deep in his throat.

‘Just one,’ he winces again when the long sleeve of his shirt is ripped apart to get to the wound, showing black lines crawling up and down the appendage. ‘I’ve never been shot before,’ he slurs in a dazed manner.

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologizes softly as he withdraws one cartridge and breaks it apart to let the wolfsbane gather on top of his palm. It’s sizzling at the skin but he ignores the pain as he burns it and waits for the yellow-green glow to subside before smothering the ash into the bullet hole.

The boy lets out a choked cry, a sound that makes one other werewolf appear from the shadows by his side, fingertips still shaped with claws but gentle as he holds him down. The Alpha’s eyes never stray from the wound as it burns and heals. He watches as the lines recede and frowns at it like it’s not doing what it’s supposed to. More seconds pass before he’s using s one clawed finger to dig into the skin.

‘What are you doing?’ Another werewolf arrives just as the boy starts to thrash on the ground. He’s tall, dark, bulky and looks like he could punch someone through a wall with just a flick of his arm but he does the same thing as the Beta werewolf; he holds the boy down gently with human hands.

‘The bullet’s not coming out. It needs to come out to heal properly,’ he explains just as the tip of his thumb goes in with the first to pull out a dented piece of metal glistening with blood and lines of black. The wound heals almost immediately, leaving nothing behind but trails of blood and sweat.

The boy is still breathing harshly as he pushes himself up into a sitting position to gingerly touch his arm. ‘I feel like I’m gonna puke.’ The two Betas step away to give him space, though with wrinkled noses like they’re waiting for something foul to come up his throat.

‘You get used to it,’ the Alpha tells him as he offers a hand to help him get back up on his feet.

‘God, I hope not,’ he makes a face at those words as he pockets the magazine and lighter away with choppy movements, as though he’s trying to remember how to make full use of his arm again.

Dylan thinks maybe he was wrong about the cohesion of the pack. They’re new, obviously, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t care for one another. Maybe it’s not a lack of respect between the Betas and their Alpha. Maybe it’s less to do with the Betas not reacting well to the Alpha’s authority and more like teenage rebellion instead.

He’s almost jealous.

\-----

He thinks about him sometimes. He used to think about him every day but now the thought only comes up whenever he sees a boy that looks like his friend. Sometimes it’s the hair, sometimes it’s their eyes, sometimes it’s the way they smile or laugh or the way they move their arms as they excitedly talk about something really interesting. It’s never all of those things at once.

It’s weird. Scott hasn’t thought about his friend in a while but there’s something about this guy that just…makes him wonder.

But the hair’s all wrong, his eyes aren’t kind, he doesn’t smile; only smirks, and he’s still when he talks, _if_ he talks.

No, it’s not him.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I try to do chapter planning, really I do! But they always end up being more or less than my original estimation. It’s like they have a mind of their own!! 
> 
> It’s scary…

 

She doesn’t believe in Justice, not when she’s got a finger on the trigger and a steady aim on a man’s heart. Justice is not on her side. Justice will never be on her side because the bottom line is that she’s a killer as well as an accessory to murder.

Allison doesn’t believe in Justice, but she believes in doing what’s right. The law may not be on her side but the Code is.

\-----

**Chapter 3**

\-----

They bandage the man’s arm and fingers crudely; just enough work and detail to stem the flow but that’s it – they’re not nurses and they’re not here to cater to his health. Especially when the hunter woke up in the middle of transit and suffered another two hits on the head – one to shut his kicking and screaming and the second to knock him right out again. Definitely not nurses.

‘There’s two more in town,’ Dylan brings up as they cable tie the man onto the chair. ‘I can give you the GPS location of where they are but the coordinates are at least an hour old; it won’t be reliable anymore.’ He doubts they’ll still be there but it wouldn’t hurt to get the place checked out, see what resources they have available.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ the Alpha tells him from where he’s standing by the threshold of the cabin, a wrinkle in his nose no doubt from the smell of mountain ash still under the floorboards. ‘They all reek of the same smell. Just give us the rough location and we’ll work from there.’

Dylan rattles off the street name and rough address without taking his attention away from the last piece of plastic he’s tightening around the man’s wrist, uncaring that it’s the one with the missing fingers. Allison is beside him looking down at the dried blood splatters on the floor but she doesn’t mention it as she steps towards the door.

‘Are you coming with us?’ She asks him when he makes no move to follow them out.

‘No. Do whatever you want with the other two; I just need him,’ he tells her as he takes a seat on the only other available chair in the room and waits.

She doesn’t leave straight away and neither does the Alpha. Dylan is aware they’re still by the door, having a silent conversation he’s not privy to. It’s not long before the decision to leave is made and he’s left alone.

He listens as two cars start up one after another, the sound of their rumbling engines coming in through the open door to reverberate around the empty cabin. He can see and hear the clatter of the old window panes, the glass quivering in-between the rotting wood. The cars are gone within a minute and he’s finally left alone with the hunter still unconscious and slumping forward in his seat, his blood dripping onto the floor at a sedate pace, mixing with the dried blood and rejuvenating it.

The fingers, or lack of, remind him of the chill he’s starting to feel in his own hands so he takes out the gloves from the pocket of his jacket, slips them on and tucks them under his armpits to warm them.

The circle of mountain ash he had surrounding the perimeter of the cabin is broken, it had to be to let the wolves in, and he’s considering whether or not to refresh it. He doesn’t think they’ll come back – they’ve concluded their business and there’s nothing left to discuss – and at the same time he doesn’t think he’ll return to use the same place once he’s done with this man.

He doesn’t know how long the man will remain unconscious for. He could wake up anywhere between the next couple of minutes, or hours, or even days. Hell, if they hit him too hard or in just the wrong spot then he could be out of it forever. Dylan doesn’t know how long he’ll have to wait for but he’s got time; he can use it to figure out the best method of finding out what he needs to know.

The hunter wakes up sometime around dawn. By then, Dylan has already lost enough patience that he doesn’t dilly-dally with his questions or techniques when it comes to getting the answers he needs. This guy is worse than the first hunter he interrogated, knowing even _less_ because he’s not even from this part of America. No, he came in all the way from Washington thinking he’ll be the big fish in a little pond like Beacon Hills. Maybe he could’ve been but he had the unfortunate luck of meeting Dylan.

He puts him out of his misery and wonders if it’s too late to go after the last two hunters to see if they might know anything at all. Unlikely, and knowing his luck, they’re probably already dead at the hands of the local pack.

When he leaves the cabin behind him he doesn’t repair the broken line of mountain ash, lets it fade and for the winds to pick up in his absence.

\--

The apartment is exactly as he left it hours prior but he wonders if he’ll need to up and move again now that the werewolves know his scent and can easily track him down to this address. The mountain ash he dusted over himself was rendered useless the moment he pulled the trigger. They’re not hostile, at least not without a reason but the thought isn’t entirely comforting. He’s been in the business long enough to know the moods and motivations of the wolves can change at the flip of a hat. Even a tilt is enough to sway them and Dylan doesn’t want it to topple in the wrong direction.

He takes his laptop out from where he kept it under the fridge, switches it on and spends the next half hour working on entering pass codes and breaking through a detailed set of encryption meant to ward off any amateur thieves or would-be hackers. In a world where information is power it’s never too safe to have one, two, three or even more lines of defense to protect it.

The two hunters have gone off-grid and the only information he has on them are the details of their last known location, still the same address from the night before. He doesn’t know if they’re dead, or if they’re on the move; either after the local pack or away from them as humanly possible. He thinks if they’re sloppy, which they may well be, they’ll leave something of value behind. He hopes they do.

It takes him between one breath and another to decide to go for it. He packs up his laptop, slides it under the gap beneath the dishwasher he never uses and trades his heavy jacket for a lighter one, something more suitable for daytime strolling than nighttime shenanigans in the woods. He also loads an extra three cartridges into the magazine before slipping it back into the gun. He checks for his knives, packs a couple more cable ties and adds a last minute addition of lock picks just in case he gets lucky with something. He leaves the apartment again despite having not slept in well over 30 hours. He tells himself that it’s only for recon; that he’s only just going to scope out the place and have a feel of what the situation is for now but he knows plans can easily change at the slightest shifts.

He drives towards the address and parks outside a casual restaurant less than a block down from the apartment complex. He goes in for a coffee and a quick bite, both of which he devours in no time at all. He doesn’t have regular meals and while he tries to eat as often as he can afford, his days are too long and too erratic for him to keep to a normal schedule. He buys a danish, a light snack for a sugar hit, to nibble on after he’s done sorting through whatever mess has been left behind.

It’s still broad daylight and he doesn’t want to be seen so frequently near the apartment building he has no good reason to be hanging around at looking like a creeper and drawing attention to himself. He uses his boyish looks to his advantage when necessary but even that won’t stop someone from thinking that he might be a suspicious character and warn the county police about him.

The alley next to the building is nondescript. The apartment is five storeys high with a rooftop access via the fire escape. There are two rooms that he can see on each level, some with potted plants, plastic chairs and fairy lights as decorations. The entire fifth floor of the fire escape is littered with streamers, balloons and slit foil curtains of different colors. He removes those rooms from the list of possible suspects – he highly doubts the hunters would throw a party or invest money in making the apartment look pretty. There are a couple of rooms with their windows open, lace white curtains swaying with the light breeze. One of them has a cracked pane of glass and he catches sight of a few small gouges on the bottom of the wood as if something was used to pry it open.

They look like claws but he thinks he might be projecting.

He makes a note of the apartment – three storeys up, second window on the right – and leaves, takes out the danish from the pocket of his jacket and bites into the flaky pastry with melted chocolate. It’s good, but only because he hasn’t indulged in sweet treats for a long time.

There’s a parking ticket under the windshield when he gets back to his car which, _what_ , he hasn’t even been there for more than three-quarters of an hour. When he gets close enough to catch the details of it he notices that it’s not a ticket at all, just a plain serviette with the logo of the restaurant he went into just moments earlier. He takes it, careful not to let it rip to pieces, and gets in the car. He leaves the note on the passenger side next to a crumpled paper bag before starting the engine and driving out of the parking spot.

He makes a few turns, going nowhere in particular before deciding to head towards a gas station. The car’s fuel tank warning light just appeared on his dash and he figures he should do it now, get it out of the way while he’s still got some free time on his hands. As soon as the gas pump is in place he opens the passenger side door and flips the serviette to read whatever’s on the other side. The writing is unfamiliar, looking more like chicken scratch than anything legible where the letters “a” and “o” look so ridiculously similar they might as well be the same thing but he gets the gist of it.

_Houston, we have a problem._

He rips the serviette into pieces and throws half of it with the paper bag into the trash behind him and the rest into his pocket for later disposal. He doesn’t know where the note came from or from who but it’s the kind of warning that’s commonplace in his line of work where hyper-vigilance is key to survival.

As soon as the pump clicks off, signaling a full tank, he pulls the nozzle out, screws the cap back on and pays for the gas in cash before driving in the opposite direction of where his apartment is located. About a mile down the road he burns a third of the serviette he’s got in his pockets using the car’s cigarette lighter and the ashtray, waits for the flames to smolder and go out before rolling the window down to get rid of the smell of burning paper.

\--

There’s a sign on the side of the road that says “Welcome to Beacon Hills” that’s surprisingly well kept and completely without graffiti. The paint is old but not flaking and the metal is free of dents and scratches unlike some of the other signs he’s seen and driven past. He remembers seeing a welcome sign somewhere with some letters scratched off to read “Please d i e slowly” and it never fails to make him smirk.

On the other side of the same sign is one that reads “Thanks for staying in Beacon Hills, Come back soon”.

He feels a throb in his chest, his elbow jerking out and he doesn’t know why he suddenly feels angry but he gets back in the car with a slam and makes a u-turn a little bit more violently than he normally would. When he gets back to his apartment the throb is still there and stays with him through the entire day. It’s gone by the time the sun sets, his mind back to focus on more important things that need to be done that night.

\--

Someone’s having a party on the rooftop and he can see people going in and out of an apartment on the fifth floor for more drinks or food or something else. He doesn’t care. It just means that it’ll seem less suspicious when he climbs his way up the fire escape to slip in through the open window on the third level uninvited.

He quietly closes the window behind him and uses the streetlights, what little of it is coming through, to scan his surroundings. The place looks a bit of a mess, as if someone went through packing in a hurry, taking what’s important and leaving behind things that could be done without. He’s got a hand on his belt close to his knives, having not packed any of his guns because if trouble comes his way then he doesn’t want to be heard. He doubts the loud music playing two floors above him can mute the gunshots if any gets fired and he doesn’t think people will be oblivious enough to simply let it go and not call the police.

The floor is littered with candy wrappers and cigarette butts, the tables with takeout boxes stacked one on top of another and empty beer bottles, he doesn’t go near the kitchen sink because it smells _foul_ even from where he’s standing. There’s a bin beside the couch full of circulars, restaurant receipts and pieces of gum. Dylan wrinkles his nose at the general upkeep of the apartment and wonders how and why some people can just let themselves go like this. It’s a pigsty and doesn’t look like it’ll seem out of place in a college dorm room full of boys getting high off drugs and freedom.

The possibility that he might be breaking and entering the wrong apartment is starting to seem very likely the longer he spends time in the living room. That is, until he notices the black dust on top of the first table he passed earlier. It’s innocuous, almost, but a quick flick with his lighter helps confirm the dust as wolfsbane. The disquiet he’d been feeling in his gut fades as he renews his search for any other clues the hunters might’ve left behind in their haste to leave.

He checks each room, each cupboard and closet space for anything out of the ordinary but comes up empty. He checks in every nook and cranny he can think of, even in the space above the air-conditioner but he comes away with nothing but fingertips covered in dust and a tickle in his nose. He muffles his sneezes in the elbow of his jacket and wonders if he might’ve missed something elsewhere. He performs a second search, taking more time in each room to look for things he might’ve missed the first time around. When he gets to the bathroom he checks in the toilet and finds a bag of petty cash. Handy, but not what he’s looking for.

The floorboards are solid, not a single one loose enough to be pried open and stuffed with secrets. When he moves all the furniture away from the walls he finds no holes or breaks in the plaster to hide anything out of sight. There’s nothing behind the fridge, nothing in the gaps between the dishwasher and nothing in the oven except for pieces of charred food. He checks the couches and the bedding to see if anything’s been sneakily left inside the padding but finds nothing still and when he resorts to digging through the trash all he ends up with are dirty hands and a building sense of frustration.

It’s nearing midnight and the party upstairs sound like it’s still going strong but he’s beginning to lose patience.

A loud clunk coming from somewhere on the fire escape makes him pause in the middle of another look through the closet in the second bedroom. His hand resumes its place next to his knives and he keeps a firm grip on the handle of one as he quietly moves towards the door leading into the hallway.

There’s a shadow in the living room, moving around and looking through things Dylan went through once before. He can’t tell who it is, whether it’s one of the hunters who came back to pick up something they left behind or a civilian from the party above who noticed an opportunity to make a quick buck and decided to grab it. He has no qualms hurting a hunter but hurting a stranger without a single connection to the supernatural is something he’d rather not have on his hands.

He notices the shadow moving towards the kitchen away from his side of the apartment as he exits the room and keeps his back to the wall. He’s careful not to make any noise that might give him away and he’s careful not to bump into the loose doorknob that leads into the first bedroom. He continues to keep his knife sheathed, a mistake he realizes too late the moment something punches the side of his face, the blow hard enough for him to knock his head against the wall.

Bursts of bright lights appear from behind his eye lids and he opens them to see shadows and spots swirl in his vision. He’s disoriented, feels vertigo when forceful hands shove him down on his knees. He kicks out as hard as he can, lands it on the shadow closest to him and listens as the man curses loudly. He tries to withdraw his knife but he can’t use his hands and it’s only now that he notices that they’re both tied behind his back in a hold tight enough that he can hardly feel his fingers.

He feels a boot land a hit between his shoulder blades and he can’t help the cry of pain that leaves him as he’s simultaneously pushed down onto the floor, his cheek colliding roughly with the wood. He makes an attempt to get back up, tries to gain purchase with his feet, but there’s a heavy boot on his back and a hand holding his head firmly down. He’s beaten and he blames himself for his carelessness.

‘Well, well, well…if it isn’t the prodigal son. I thought I heard your voice in the woods.’

Dylan grunts and tries to blink out the spots he can still see hovering in his eyesight. The voice is familiar but he can’t put a face to it. Whenever he tries to move to get a clearer view of the speaker he’s unceremoniously shoved back down until he can almost taste the wood varnish.

He can feel his sweat beading across his forehead and something slick on the side of his face. He hopes it’s not blood; leaving blood behind means leaving DNA which could connect him to multiple crime scenes. Not even being a minor can save him from having to serve time in a prison cell for all the deaths he’s committed.

The foot on his back gets heavier but then it’s suddenly gone only to be replaced by a firm knee instead as the man above him dips his head low enough to whisper in his ear.

‘Imagine my surprise when you introduced yourself to the _wolves_ ,’ he says it like an insult which, in a way, it probably is. ‘Have you gone and turned your back on the Code?’

‘Unlike you, I _am_ following the Code,’ he spits out and tries again to push his assailants off him but he’s outnumbered and severely lacking in strength. His head gets another knock on the floor for his trouble.

‘The boss likes to play favorites but even he won't turn a blind eye to this when you've turned your back on us. Don’t pretend like you’re better than the rest of us just because you had one-on-one sessions with him,’ the man sneers, his good mood gone with just a few choice words.

Dylan feels the need to press his buttons some more.

‘I don’t have to pretend,’ he smirks and feels the barrel of a gun being pressed against his temple. It’s going to be loud and it’s going to be messy and the only thing he’s sorry about is that he didn’t get to finish what he started.

He doesn’t close his eyes. If he goes then he wants to go with his eyes wide open and a smirk on his face.

A snick catches his attention followed by a choke and a thud from somewhere beside him, heavy enough to make the floor shake. The hand on his head is gone and so is the gun, pointed somewhere else that’s not anywhere near the vicinity of his brain. There’s a crash behind him and he notices the weight on his back is blissfully absent as he chances a look up.

Allison is standing in front of him loading another bolt onto her crossbow, eyes focused on the person beside him. When he follows her gaze he sees a bolt sticking out of the man’s chest. He’s not breathing.

He awkwardly pushes himself up into a more defensible stance, observes the lack of blood on the floor where his head was and feels relief wash over him.

There’s a loud snap of bones and Dylan tears his eyes away in time to see the Alpha take his clawed hands away from the neck of the man who almost shot him point-blank. He feels a breath leave him as disappointment takes over his system.

‘Wow, thanks,’ he says nonchalantly as he stands from his kneeling position on the floor and goes to stare down the dead hunter. ‘You know, I really could’ve used him. He sounded like he knew a few things.’ Now that he’s got a better look of the man he can recognize him as Mike Buckston, one of the lead hunters who frequently travel along the west coast with a team of men and women behind him. Dylan never really spoke to him and they rarely crossed paths with each other.

‘You’re welcome,’ the Alpha retorts with a snap of his teeth, his wolfish expression smoothing back into something more human.

‘Here, let me help you with that,’ he hears Allison offer from behind him and it’s not long after he feels the cable ties break and he regains full use of his arms once more.

‘Thanks, much appreciated,’ he says with more feeling as he rubs his wrists and tries to shake out the pins and needles in his fingertips. His gratitude, however, is not extended to the Alpha and he tells him so. ‘Seriously, you just cost me a good lead,’ Dylan tells him petulantly. After almost a month of going nowhere he feels entitled to throwing a shit-fit after coming so close to something usable only for a werewolf to come by and snap its neck. Literally.

‘I just saved your life,’ he actually huffs, squaring his shoulders and letting a small portion of his emotions bleed through his eyes.

‘Ugh, I know, but I’m still pissed,’ he frowns as he kicks the boot of the dead man and wishes he had the ability to pick apart the man’s brain to see what else he knew. But his life isn’t a fiction movie so he simply lets it go in hopes that another opportunity will be kind enough to turn up somewhere around the next corner. He sighs and gives the Alpha his full attention. ‘So, what do you want?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I believe in paying things forward, so let’s make a deal.’

\-----

He swore to himself that he’ll never become involved with another hunter. But he should’ve known that everything that happens in his life happens in such a way that, no matter what, he’s going to break that promise. Repeatedly.

The first offence occurred when Allison came packaged with Scott. (Derek should’ve known.)

The second happened when Dylan offered to get rid of any hunter going against the Code out of Beacon Hills in exchange for help retrieving information.

There’s a third time, but that won’t happen until much, much later.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

He didn’t grow up like the others. The environment he was surrounded in was less than ideal for a developing child. He never went to school; everything he knows now is learnt through watching and doing. Everything he does now is a habit driven deep into his personality and psyche. He knows, intimately, that every action leads to a consequence and every inaction can lead to possible death.

Dylan didn’t grow up like the others but it’s the only life he has.

\-----

**Chapter 4**

\-----

Hunters, like werewolves, hold a unique scent – something that sets them apart from the rest of the human population. For werewolves, it’s the sense of belonging; a mingling of several different smells over a base scent. For hunters, it’s the smell of wolfsbane, gunpowder and layers upon layers of spilled blood.

Dylan is no different.

He can tell which apartment belongs to the boy the second they step off the elevator, can easily lead the way and track it down to the right number. The stench of it makes something twist in his stomach but the only consolation he feels is that the spilled blood doesn’t belong to any of his fallen brothers and sisters but to Dylan’s own kind.

Derek doesn’t know what to make of it.

The apartment is neat and orderly, completely the opposite of the one they’d been through just a few hours ago. It’s sensible with nothing out of place and, with the exception of the smell, entirely normal.

‘Homey,’ Allison comments as she deposits the duffel bag she’d been carrying onto the coffee table.

‘I try,’ Dylan says with a wry smile as he flicks on a couple of light switches and dumps half the table contents into the trash before sliding the rest into a neat stack on the bookshelf next to the TV. He picks up the duffel bag he’d placed on the floor and puts it next to hers, unzipping it and taking out the contents piece by piece. Allison copies after him and soon they have a good stash of various guns, knives and an assortment of different strains of wolfsbane.

That’s not even including the two bags Derek has by his feet.

‘There’s nothing of value that I want,’ Dylan tells them as he repacks everything back in and starts on the third bag, laying everything out on the kitchen counter rather than the coffee table.

‘What about this?’ Allison asks as she holds out a laptop carry case.

‘That’ll do,’ he abandons the bag and takes the carry case, unzips it and starts plugging the wires into the power socket that used to belong to the toaster. ‘I don’t know if they’ve set up any passwords, encryption or the like so it could take me anywhere between the next ten minutes or the next couple of hours before I get in. Make yourself at home.’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ she says but continues on with her search, eventually moving on from the living room table to the kitchen counter to sort through the rest of the duffel bag that Dylan didn’t finish.

There’s an itch that’s starting to develop in his throat and every breath he inhales is beginning to feel difficult. Derek doesn’t know if it’s from prolonged exposure to such an intense amount of wolfsbane in a confined space or if it’s the accumulation of different strains in his system. There were several cases of wolfsbane in its pure form that Allison took out of the first bag and while it’s already been repacked the stench of it is still lingering in the air.

He needs to leave but his pride won’t let him.

So he suffers in silence.

Almost as if his mind is being read Dylan reaches for the window next to him and slides it open. Derek tries not to breathe in too deeply at the smell of fresh air coming in at a light breeze but it’s a near thing. The odor of traffic fumes is heady but its miles better than the cloud of poison he’d been drowning himself in just before.

‘I forget about your sensitive disposition,’ Dylan says not unkindly as he gets up from where he’d been sitting by the counter to open a few more windows on his side of the living room. Allison follows his cue to open the two in the kitchen. ‘If this smell is starting to give me a headache then it must be killing you from the inside out.’

Derek doesn’t know what to do with that, and neither does Allison who’s suddenly more focused with unpacking and paying closer attention to certain objects.

He swallows the lump he can still feel in his throat but it’s healing, progressively becoming smaller and smaller until he can breathe without feeling like someone who’d just been on the verge of anaphylactic shock.

‘Thank you,’ he murmurs once he feels like he can speak without wheezing. He catches the smallest of upticks from both Dylan and Allison but they carry on with their original task.

The oppressive smell is not quite gone but less potent than it was just minutes prior. He can smell the world beyond it, such as the bakery opposite the road and the deli next to it. The aroma of fermenting yeast and mixed spices an overall pleasant scent in contrast with the four duffel bags they’d brought up.

‘You’re welcome,’ Dylan murmurs softly after a few beats have passed.

Derek continues to breathe around the smell of wolfsbane, gunpowder, mountain ash and the blood of hunters soaking in their pores.

\--

Only half an hour has passed before Allison has all four bags zipped and lined up next to the door in wait for Scott and Isaac to arrive. They agreed to pick up her car she parked two blocks away from the hunter’s apartment and it’s a good thing she parked in a spot without a time limit otherwise she’d have an accumulation of hefty parking tickets for her to take home. She’d called them to help her with transportation as well as the task of getting rid of the stolen SUV. Derek waits for them to take the bags and go, thinking about what to do next. He can’t leave; the alliance he has with the boy is too new for him to test. He knows he can rely on him, if their past encounters are anything to go by, but he doesn’t trust him. Not yet.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ Dylan brings up without looking away from the laptop, ‘it’ll take some more time before I’m through.’ All Derek can see is a complicated bunch of coding. There’s nothing he can do so he leaves it for the self-taught expert to handle.

‘How much longer?’ he asks as he slips the phone out of his front pocket to check the time before sliding it back and moving across the apartment to close the kitchen windows. It’s still cold, even with the season approaching spring, and while he can’t feel it as deeply as a normal human might he knows Dylan can’t hold out for much longer. His position with the laptop next to the open window isn’t helping either. There’s a barely-there tremor in his limbs but he’s steadfast in his work.

‘Can’t tell – like I said, it can take anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours.’

‘Leave it; we can both do with some rest,’ he tells him as he closes the rest of the windows he can reach.

It’s past midnight, almost three in the morning. The past few days have been restless and now that this second group of hunters is down he thinks he deserves a few well-earned hours of sleep, something he knows he’s not the only one that’s gone without. He can see the redness in Dylan’s eyes and the dark smudges beneath them, the way his posture slumps forward only for him to snap back to rigidity once it’s noticed.

‘Then you can go.’

Derek tries not to bristle at the dismissive tone but he doesn’t push. He knows about breaking points and he can tell that, while the boy’s not too close to it, he’s not too far from it either.

He doesn’t want to leave but if anything happens and he’s sloppy because of lack of sleep then he has no one to blame but himself. So he goes, has the doorknob in his grip turned halfway but then a thought catches him off guard.

‘What did you do with the hunter?’ Derek asks him. He doesn’t elaborate on which because there’s only one other hunter they could be talking about.

Dylan stops in his work to look up at him, tired eyes and determination combined. ‘The same thing I’d do to anybody who breaks the Code,’ he says it like a threat and a promise all rolled into one. It’s reassuring, in a way, to know he’s speaking the truth. ‘Who left the note?’

The random question catches him by surprise and it takes Derek a while to realize what he’s talking about. ‘Isaac did.’

He scoffs, a barely-there smirk on the edges of his lips. ‘His penmanship needs work.’

Derek leaves, locking the door behind him as he goes.

\--

He doesn’t trust easily, not after everything that’s happened to him and his family. Any trust that he gives is hard-earned and sometimes paid for with blood.

The trust Derek has in his pack is tentative at times, not only because they have a hunter in their midst but also because of his obvious lack of knowledge when it comes to things involving his history and lifestyle. They’re all stumbling in through the dark, sometimes with hands held tight and claws digging deep.

He wishes he knew more but knowledge is power and he’d rather die a slow, painful death than have anybody else do to him what was already done once before.

\--

There are a few things Derek knows about hunters, one of which involves smell. He can pick them out in a crowd of people simply based on their scent; a cocktail of wolfsbane, gunpowder and a generous dash of blood. The fashions they follow tend to involve form-fitting clothes but with heavy jackets stitched with hidden pockets full of things that can hurt, maim or kill those of a supernatural disposition. He’s met a few that have knives stored in the heel of their boot that can switch out with just the right amount of pressure. He knows they follow a Code but he also knows it’s more of a guideline and that not all hunters follow it. If anything, they tend to laugh at it and treat it like a joke.

Allison was the first hunter he met that kept to those rules, but even she makes mistakes and breaks them occasionally.

Dylan is the second but he doesn’t just keep to it; he follows it religiously.

The second time he steps in through the boy’s apartment doors with Allison he catches the smell of baked bread and cheese. The two kitchen windows are wide open and the laptop is displaying open folders and documents of various sorts. The boy looks like he only slept a few meager hours but at least a few is better than none at all.

‘I’m having breakfast-lunch-brunch right now. You want one?’ Dylan offers as he holds up a toasted sandwich of fried egg and melted cheese. He’s freshly showered, smelling more like a regular teenage boy than a hunter. It makes something in Derek’s chest ease a small fraction.

There’s something about his scent that makes him calm but he refuses to let his guard down regardless of the fact that they’ve saved each others’ lives once already.

‘No, thank you,’ Allison smiles as she takes a seat in front of the laptop and starts to click around, opening pages, pictures and files.

The boy shrugs as he continues to eat in the kitchen, crumbs falling off and dusting the stainless steel sink. His gaze is aimed on the horizon outside the window but Derek doubts he’s focused on anything in particular.

He goes to stand behind Allison, reading over her shoulder to see if there might be anything useful for them to take note of but he can’t make out anything from the mess of names, numbers, dates and highlights of various colors. He leaves her to filter out valuable information from the useless and goes to stand by the windows in the living room, watching the world move on around him.

‘You can have the laptop,’ Dylan tells them as he finishes off the last bite of the sandwich and dusts his hands off over the sink. ‘I’m done with it.’

‘Anything practical?’ She asks as she continues to scroll through the spreadsheet, looking more and more confused the longer she stares at it.

‘Depends on you. It’s nothing I don’t already know; old news by this point,’ he shrugs and passes her to take a seat on the couch, slouches into the cushions until he’s sprawled comfortably across it. ‘What about you? Anything you want to know?’ He directs this to Derek as he stretches his arms above his head and pillows them behind him.

Derek wants to be wary of him but the boy’s done nothing to warrant the kind of hate he usually reserves for hunters. However, there are certain things about the boy that won’t let him shake off the feeling of suspicion – he’s too cooperative.

‘What can you tell me?’ He settles for eventually.

He shrugs again. ‘Ask me a question and maybe I’ll answer.’

Derek takes a seat on the window sill and starts off simple. He either gets answers or a loud “next!” if it’s something Dylan would rather not talk about. He listens as the boy speaks but it’s what he doesn’t say that makes Derek pay closer attention.

Dylan knows things about what being a hunter involves, having been part of it for so long, far longer than Allison. What Derek didn't know is that Dylan is a lot more knowledgeable in that area than he’d originally assumed – anything ranging from their habits down to their routines.

‘I know the Code like the back of my hand,’ he demonstrates as he holds up his palm and flexes his fingers. ‘It’s commonsense to me but you’d be surprised how many people just aren’t gifted with that.’

Derek can’t help the smirk on his face while Allison laughs from where she’s sitting; everybody surprisingly on the same page when it comes to this particular subject, but the light mood doesn’t last.

‘Why did you choose to become a hunter?’

The smirk falls off his lips as a dark look passes over the boy’s eyes, making him look older by years and years. Derek’s prepared for his question to be rebuffed only to be surprised when Dylan answers him.

‘I didn’t choose,’ he mutters as he gets up from the couch, walks back into the kitchen to look through the cabinet to pull out a cup. He fills it with tepid water but the glass never goes near his lips. Minutes pass before Dylan takes in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t choose,’ he repeats himself as he turns away from the window to look at him straight in the eye, ‘but it’s the only choice I have now.’

‘It’s not,’ he surprises himself by saying it. ‘This is your own life and you have the choice to live it however you like, whether it’s this or whatever else.’

The boy furrows his eyebrows, looking confused, insecure and hopeful at the same time. In that moment he looks impossibly young, exactly like a teenager should.

Derek doesn’t trust him, but he’s getting close to it.

\-----

There are very few missing persons’ cases in Beacon Hills, possibly because it’s such a small county, but it happens. A rough estimation of 96% of those cases are solved; people usually reappearing within 13 days, maybe a little worse for wear but alive and mostly well.

He has a soft spot for those cases, always checking the reports and making sure to keep an open eye out for anybody who looks lost and in need of a ride back home.

He holds the highest closing rate for those cases but at the end of the day his son is still part of the 4% that remain unsolved.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is story planning so DIFFICULT??? I actually get dizzy at the thought of it. It's, like, so daunting to the point your fingers just freeze on top of the keyboard and you're thinking, 'oh shit' over and over again.
> 
> Or maybe that's just me.
> 
> ANYWAY! ENJOY THIS NEXT CHAPTER!

 

Sometimes he wonders how differently his life would’ve turned out if he grew up with his best friend beside him. Would they be taking the same curriculums together, sitting next to each other and elbowing at one another during class to pass the time with? Would he have had better grades with a study partner who needles at him to “keep trying” instead of just barely passing every subject? Would he have recovered from the anger and heartbreak of watching his mum and dad go through a divorce as slowly as he did? Would he have done the same stupid things, getting into trouble and still gotten himself into a situation where he’s now a werewolf?

There are a lot of things Scott wonders about when he isn’t thinking about Allison, surviving and making grades (all in that order) but mostly he just hopes his best friend is still alive somewhere and will come back home soon. He doesn’t care if the real person doesn’t fulfill the image of the best friend he has in his head as long as he gets him back.

\-----

**Chapter 5**

\-----

Working with Allison is different from what he’s used to, only recently because he’s learnt not to trust anyone, especially those in the Hunting business. She’s useful, though; knows things about the town and the preserve surrounding them, hot-spots and casual haunts that hunters tend to go to more often, never mind that he knows every single one of them, too. It took him five days upon his arrival to finish his very own grand tour of the place but he now knows Beacon Hills as intimately as any local would.

A third group of hunters rolled into town barely a week after the second group was thoroughly dispatched. News of their arrival made Derek’s hackles rise and normally Dylan would be amused if it didn’t feel as though they’ve just entered the eye of the storm, waiting out the calm before the winds pick up double-time.

‘They’re going to wait until nightfall before they go into the woods, which means we have a few hours to prepare ourselves,’ he tells them as he hooks some cables connecting his laptop to the TV. The screen jolts but clears to show a GPS map with a cluster of red dots on the very edge of town. There’s a single dot close to the central part of Beacon Hills right on the very spot of their current address but its green as opposed to red.

Allison squints at the TV, mouth slightly parted in mixed surprise and confusion. ‘How did you get this?’

‘Not important,’ he dismisses the subject and moves on, circles the grouping of red dots using the pointer of the mouse. ‘They’re going to settle in, probably read up on the local news to catch up on any current events. If they’re smart then they’re going to be looking for patterns, if not, well…’ he trails off, letting the rest of the occupants scattered across his living room use their wild imagination to figure it out for themselves. ‘Any ideas?’ He asks once their snickering gets under control.

There are vague murmurs and a few shrugs here and there but nothing to signify the starting of a plan. He wants to use this opportunity to see how the local pack operates as a team but all he’s getting out of it is the impression of a bunch of teenagers, excluding the Alpha, unwillingly put together for a class project. Dylan almost sighs and he can tell Derek is sharing the same sentiment.

‘What do you suggest?’ Derek asks as he pushes himself away from the kitchen counter and takes up a spot next to a dark-skinned boy by the couch. His question garners a few odd looks from a couple of his Betas but they turn their attention back to Dylan looking wide-eyed and curious. He wonders if he’s being tested, too, but he doesn’t really care if he passes or fails so long as he gets the results he wants.

‘They won’t be expecting it if we go after them now. They think they have an advantage; fine, we’ll give them the illusion of it for a while longer.’

‘But its broad daylight,’ the curly-haired blond brings up and stops fiddling with his lighter as he looks outside the window to the clear day.

‘Exactly,’ Allison grins as she turns towards him. ‘They won’t see us coming.’

‘Sneaky,’ the blonde sitting on the arm of his couch with one leg hooked over the other says with a smirk. ‘I like it.’

He’s noticed the way she looks at him and her lingering gazes on his body. He catches the way she bites and licks her lips as well as the subtle shifts in her posture, trying to bait him into looking back at her the way she’s been staring at him. He’s not blind to it but he’s not going to encourage it either – there’s a bigger picture he needs to focus on.

‘This is where they’re staying,’ Dylan begins to explain as he clicks on a website and enlarges a map until it’s just a single block of buildings. He enlarges it further until it’s showing a pixilated picture of a bed-and-breakfast motel that’s only two levels high. ‘For now we’ll just do recon, shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Sunset’s in four and I don’t think they’ll be heading out until after dinner but it never hurts to set a time-limit and keep to it.’

‘Who’s going with you?’ The dark-haired boy with a less-than-even jaw line asks but he makes a face as if he’s already made a guess as to who it might be.

‘Allison.’

This gets a mixed set of reactions. Derek and Boyd, who prefers to be called by his last name as opposed to his first, are indifferent to his choice, Erica and Isaac look disappointed, although most likely for different reasons, and Scott is worried but Allison seems to be taking it all in stride.

‘Why Allison? Why not take Erica?’ Scott tries to reason as he takes her hand into his, gentle and reassuring in his grip, though it’s difficult to say who he’s trying to comfort more, whether it’s for the girl or for himself.

‘Because we both blend in,’ Dylan doesn’t explain any further – he’s not a petty teenager out to steal girlfriends. He turns his attention to the Alpha instead, deferring to him now that he’s said his part. ‘That’s one plan and it’s your decision if you want to go through with it or not.’

Derek turns his eyes to his Betas, watching them one by one as he asks them, ‘does anybody else want to offer a suggestion?’

Scott is the one that speaks up. ‘I think I should go with Allison. It’s not like it’ll be hard; it’s just recon.’

‘Scott,’ she starts as she takes his hand in both of hers, ‘you’re not exactly…inconspicuous,’ she says not unkindly with a little bite to her lip and an apologetic look on her face. ‘You have these little habits – the head tilt, the sniffing, the color of your eyes when they hit a light source at a certain angle – they set you apart from the norm.’

‘Sucks to be you, bro,’ Isaac grins at him, having quickly recovered from his disappointment of not being picked.

‘Shut up,’ he growls with a pinched expression on his face.

Derek rolls his eyes. ‘Then we go with this plan. Both of you have three hours max.’

‘We’ll be back in two,’ he tells him as he gets up and starts gearing up. He takes two knives with him, one switchblade plus a dagger strapped to the inside of his boot. He packs enough cable ties for eight people, halves it with Allison and takes a few extra items he’s not sure he’ll be using but might come in handy if needed. He leaves the guns behind, thinking them unnecessary, and watches as Allison unsheathes a knife in the leather guard on her forearm and tucks it back in.

‘I should invest in one of those, probably.’

She smirks as she rolls her sleeves back down to cover it up. ‘I know a website that gives great deals.’

‘Awesome.’ He tries not to let his excitement show as he picks up his car keys and opens the door for her, leaving the others behind in his apartment.

He hopes they won’t trash it in the time he’s gone.

\--

There’s a man he sees around town often, patrolling the streets, speaking to the locals, offering help whenever and wherever it’s needed – he’s always alone even though he’s constantly surrounded by people.

He wears his badge like a shield and keeps a hand next to the radio transceiver like a lifeline.  The smile he has on his face is tight around the edges but softens whenever a small child walks by with their hand wrapped around the fingers of their parent. He rolls his eyes at the antics of teenagers he sees passing by him with a put-upon expression on his face but still fond despite all the laughing and jeers they jab at each other in good fun.

Dylan can’t help but feel sentimental but chalks it up to feeling over-tired and under-rested. He wants to get out of town as soon as possible but he’s got business to deal with first before he can book it out of Beacon Hills.

\--

The motel’s meager parking lot has a few cars scattered across the area but the single dark-colored SUV parked side by side are the ones that grab their attention. It’s not near the stairs so he hopes it’s a good sign they’ve taken up residence on the first level as opposed to the second. The vehicles are near four rooms but it’s hard to tell which of them belongs to the hunters. He shares a look with Allison who nods, coming to the same conclusion as him.

Working with Allison is different from what he’s used to but it has its appeal – they’re tuned to the same frequency.

‘How do we want to do this?’ She asks as she looks away from the window and turns in the seat until her back is leaning against the door. ‘We know there’s four of them and they’re staying here but that’s it.’

‘I was thinking we could try going over there and see if we can rent a room for ourselves.’

She makes a face at him and turns away, her hair falling across her face until she’s hidden as she mutters to herself, ‘dad’s gonna _love_ this when he finds out.’

He ignores her and gets out of the car, waits for her to follow before locking the doors after her. ‘We’re teenagers – they wouldn’t give two shits about us as long as we’re paying customers,’ he rationalizes as he holds his arm out for her to take, watches as she pastes on a sweet, sweet smile and leans her head down onto his shoulder. ‘I hope your boyfriend’s the understanding type,’ he grins and hopes Scott won’t get the wrong impression if they end up smelling like each other a little bit too much.

They cross the road together and step up onto the footpath smiling at each other like two lovebirds. They’re just about halfway through the car park when he feels a tingle down his spine that he tries his best not to show on his face as he holds open the door leading into the office area. Allison blushes and bites down a smile as he guides her forward with a hand on the small of her back.

There’s a middle-age man behind the receptionist’s desk who looks at them with raised eyebrows and a leer. Allison squirms under his gaze and hides her face in Dylan’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist.

The man chuckles meanly as he tells them, ‘its $25 an hour and $80 if you want to stay the night.’

‘What do you think?’ He whispers into her hair as he rubs a hand along her arm.

‘Up to you,’ she mumbles into his jacket and tightens the grip she has around his waist.

‘We’ll take a room for the night, thanks,’ Dylan tells the man as he takes out his wallet and hands over $80 in cash.

‘Checkout’s at 10am,’ he smirks as he tosses a set of keys for their room onto the counter separating them. ‘Enjoy your stay.’

Dylan throws a wave back as he opens the door for Allison again and walks alongside her until they reach the very end of the motel to room number 8. It’s close to the SUV so he hopes they’re just right next door to each other. He doesn’t say a word about it, just smiles as he slides the key into the lock and lets her go in first. As soon as he closes and locks the door behind them their masks drop.

‘They’ve got mountain ash surrounding the motel,’ he whispers to her as soon as they’re inside.

‘How did you—but then that means the others can’t get in,’ she whispers in return.

‘Right now it’s not our main concern,’ he lowers his voice as he goes for the wall separating their room with the neighbors. He hopes the walls are paper-thin as he tries to listen in but all he’s getting are some mumbled words and at least three distinct voices. He shakes his head and goes into the adjoining kitchen, searching the cupboards until he finds two glasses and indicates for her to come along with him. He puts a finger to his lips as he places the mouth of the glass on the wall and tries to concentrate on picking out words, closing his eyes to increase his sense of hearing.

They stay like that for a few minutes, listening and trying to make sense of the conversation. Eventually Allison steps away but comes back with two pens and a pad of paper that she splits in half and hands over to him before going to the far side of the wall to cover more ground. They start to write down what they hear, snippets of words and half sentences that are just bits and pieces of a puzzle; not enough to get a clue.

Dylan jots down everything from the other side regardless of whether he thinks it’ll be useful or not. He catches words like “mountain lion”, “attacks” and “death count”; smiles when his suspicions that their neighbors are the hunters they’re after are pretty much confirmed. When he hears “food”, “starving” and “room-service” all in one sentence his head starts formulating a plan. He takes out a small pill container from the inside pocket of his jacket and holds it out between them.

Allison pauses in the middle of her writing and looks up at him in question. ‘What are you thinking of?’

‘Do you know what this is?’ He asks her as he shakes around the contents of the bottle, listens as it moves and clatters around within the tiny plastic.

She shakes her head in a negative.

‘Well, you’re about to find out.’

\-----

It was difficult at first when Allison’s scent gradually changed to become less hunter and more werewolf, because it meant their scents are intermingling. A part of him didn’t like it; made him feel uncomfortable, made him think of hunters dressed in wolf skin to lure them into a false sense of security. He’s wrong – she’s human but she has a place within the pack, a position she earned with her own power but was reinforced through her relationship with Scott.

Dylan’s scent is beginning to shift as well, something he tries to fight against at every change.

But it’s different this time.

The bond he shares with Allison was built on hostility and back-stabbing, spilled blood and deaths from both sides – a bad start if ever there was one. The bond he shares with Dylan has the beginnings of loyalty and debts. It’s not much but it’s more than he’s ever received from anyone in a long time.

It won’t last though, because in the end Dylan is still a hunter and somewhere along the way one of them is going to bleed.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because no matter how much planning I do my planning will still suck in the end. Case in point; the length of this chapter. Urgh.

 

It’s been years since his wife’s funeral but he knows people still look at him with sadness in their eyes and pity in their hearts – condolences for a man who’s lost not only the mother of his child but also the child himself.

But he made a promise to her. He swore to her that he’ll find him again no matter what. He gave her his word that he will continue to love him regardless of how different he’s become, regardless of how much he’s changed from the boy they once knew, and regardless of how much time has passed.

As he stands on her grave he repeats his oath to her that he will continue on searching, that he will always do his best, that he will live on to give her the peace she so deserves.

The saying goes that one should never make promises one cannot keep but he is a man of his word and he intends to keep every single one of them.

His morality will soon be tested.

\-----

**Chapter 6**

\-----

There are usually at least 5 phases to any plan that Dylan makes. The first step includes reconnaissance and preparation. The second step consists of getting into position and utilizing the environment. The third step requires stealth and manual labor. The fourth step comprises of information extraction using methods that are unsavory but are, without a doubt, effective. The final and last step is by far the messiest and it involves disposal. There is no such thing as a 100% success rate but he’s taken steps to ensure that the rate of failure is at its absolute minimum.

Dylan mentally ticks off the checklist he’s prepared – with recon out of the way he can focus on the next part of the plan. They only have a small window of opportunity and if that fails then they’ll have to start all over again with a new plan.

There’s a projected 15-minute wait for the kitchens to prepare all the food the hunter’s ordered. Dylan is banking for more time but he leaves the room at 13 minutes and starts towards the kitchen located at the back of the motel. As soon as he’s turned the last corner he sees one of the kitchen staff come out of the double doors with a trolley of food.

‘Hey, is that for us? Room 7?’ Dylan asks as he casually jogs up to the teenage boy, clapping his hands together while his tummy rumbles at the smell. ‘We’re starving. I’ll take it from here, save you from getting flack from the guys.’ He grins as he takes out his wallet to give the boy a tip.

The teenager visibly deflates at the news as he takes the money. ‘Oh, thank god. The guy I took the order from sounded like an ass—uh…’ he flushes with a cringe, hurriedly looks over his shoulder as if expecting someone to tell him off for insulting a paying customer.

He laughs and waves it off as he takes the trolley off the boy’s hands, ‘yeah, he gets like that when he’s hungry. Thanks a lot, by the way.’

There’s a timer in his head counting down the seconds. He has, at most, just one minute to do what needs to be done and he’s thankful Allison is waiting for him around the corner with the pill container in hand ready to be used.

‘You still haven’t told me what’s in it,’ she starts off as she unscrews the cap and hands it over to him.

‘It’s a sedative – promotes relaxation and drowsiness,’ he tells her as he sprinkles the dried herb and what looks like cracked pepper on top of the food and uses the provided cutleries to mix it in. ‘Might take a while to work and if we’re lucky they won’t think twice about how they’re all suddenly very tired.’

‘I hope this works.’

‘It’ll work. The only thing I can’t account for is time and paranoia. If they suspect foul play then it’s over.’

She nods and takes in a deep breath to steel herself as she takes over the trolley and starts pushing it towards room 7. Dylan waits around the corner and out of sight as she knocks on the door.

He hears the doors swing open and her voice saying, ‘hi, I’ve got your dinner orders here.’

‘Thanks,’ there’s the clink of metal as the trolley crosses the threshold into the room. ‘You look familiar.’

‘That’s not unusual,’ she laughs. ‘I live in Beacon Hills and I work here.’

There’s a tense moment of silence where Dylan isn’t sure what’s happening. He can’t tell if the man is buying her excuse or if the gears are clicking in his head, connecting dots regarding the local pack that there’s a hunter working within their ranks.

‘Right, thanks again,’ the man eventually says and Dylan lets out a quiet sigh of relief as the door closes and Allison comes back holding a $10 note. She looks pleased.

‘That’s cheap,’ he tells her as they walk offsite to give the food time to work its magic. ‘I gave the kitchen boy a twenty and all they gave you was a ten?’

She laughs again as she loops her arm around Dylan’s to continue playing their role of lovebirds. ‘Let’s go get something to eat. My treat,’ she grins as she waves her newfound fortune.

‘You’re gonna need more than ten bucks to feed me.’

Their bill at the diner came down to a total of $9.97. He shrugs and tries not to laugh with her when she calls him a cheap date.

\--

This is possibly the longest stretch of time he has ever spent around people in his own age group. He can’t remember ever being with someone who wasn’t at least 10 years older than him and it feels refreshing; makes him feel just a little bit reckless, wild and adventurous. For once, he feels like he finally fits in his own skin.

Sometimes he forgets that he’s a hunter, that he has responsibilities and obligations to fulfill. Sometimes he forgets that he’s not like the others, that the kind of work he does isn’t strictly legal and, if found out, could land him doing some serious jail time for all the crimes he’s committed. Sometimes he forgets that the balance between the natural world and the supernatural isn’t a heavy burden on his shoulders, that one wrong step out of line could mean exposure on both sides and absolute chaos. Sometimes he forgets, but he never forgets for long.

When he sees the way the pack interacts with each other with their teenage rivalries and puppy loves he can’t help but feel jealous of the way they can afford to let go and be so carefree with the world. He sometimes finds himself wishing for what they have but it’s a foolhardy thing to yearn for – the only way to leave the hunting business permanently is to die.

Dylan has no plans to get out of the game this early in his life.

\--

There are no voices except for the sound of snoring when they return to listen in on what’s happening next door. It’s only been half an hour but he wants to wait for another half an hour more before going over to execute the third part of the plan – transportation.

‘The doors are a standard deadbolt – how long does it take for you to unlock it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Allison says with a shake of her head. ‘Depending on my luck maybe a couple of minutes?’

He waves off the suggestion. ‘I’ll take care of lock picking. As soon as the door’s open go find the keys to the car. Do you know a place where we can take them?’

She bites her lip in contemplation a while before taking out her cell phone. ‘I need to make a call first. We should probably give the others an update, too. It’s almost two hours…’ she trails off in surprise once she’s taken note of the time.

‘In that case, I’ll be back in 10 minutes,’ he tells her as he heads towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Allison asks as she looks up from the screen of her phone, just one finger swipe away from initiating a call.

‘Just for a walk around the motel; I need to find where they’re lining up the mountain ash,’ so he can break it, he doesn’t say as he exits through their motel room and starts walking around the property until he can feel the tell-tale sign of magic in the air. He feels a tingle down his spine whenever he gets close but it’s not close enough for him to figure out the exact location. He can’t see it, can’t smell it; can only vaguely sense it.

The magic signature feels familiar but he doesn’t know which hunter it might belong to. He trained under a couple when he was younger and each of them had a different kind of mark when it came to their abilities. Last he checked there are only about a dozen hunters within the whole of west coast that has a veritable spark within them and only one team out of a possible 20 will have a hunter with the ability to wield magic. They are, in a word: prized.

Dylan slows to a leisurely stroll, closes his eyes every once in a while to have a sense of what he can feel in the air. It’s strongest near the tree line behind the motel and weakest near the parking lot. It’ll be easier on him to the break the barrier there but he can’t find where the line begins, can’t track it down even though it feels as if it’s right under his nose, so he resorts to trawling through the underbrush in search of it.

He’ll give this group of hunters credit where it’s due, though, knowing the track record with werewolves being more inclined to come in through the woods than to walk straight to the front door. They’re cautious; having reinforced the connection of the mountain ash to strengthen with the tree roots. It’ll cost a lot to break but if it means getting rid of a future obstacle then it’ll be worth the effort.

There are earthworms crawling through the freshly turned soil almost a quarter of a mile away from the motel, showing signs of it having been recently dug up. He walks along the line as it follows a slight contour going around the motel, shaped more like an oval than a circle. He goes to where the magic in the air is less heavy and volatile and more like a buzz beneath his skin. It doesn’t have the soft quality as it had in the parking lot but it’ll have to do.

Dylan takes a quick look at his surroundings, making sure that he’s alone before crouching down over the freshly laid dirt, fingers digging in deep to find that buried line of mountain ash. He keeps raking his fingers in until he’s almost half a foot into the ground and his fingers meet resistance where a spark of energy shoots up his arm in warning. He shakes it off but there’s a fine tremor left behind in his hand.

He can almost recognize the magical signature; only a few out of the dozen hunters have magic in their blood strong enough to make a barrier this solid. He can come up with three names and only one of them actually makes him worry.

He steels himself with a deep breath as he reaches back into the dirt to claw down on either side of the line, wills his magic to override what’s seeped into the ground. The smell of fresh earth becomes concentrated in the air and he can feel the solid weight of the mountain ash in his hands as he clenches his fingers together. There’s a crackle of power going up and along the line to where he is and he knows the barrier is expending all of its energy to keep itself together. He’s never had to break a barrier he didn’t make himself and it’s taking a lot more than the usual amount of force he exerts to get it done.

The mountain ash doesn’t visibly give way. Rather, he feels the solid weight clenched in his hands crumble away to fine grains of sand and the smell of earth lessen. He lets out a sigh as he pulls his shaking hand out of the ground, carrying a clump of mixed dirt and granules of black. The barrier is gone; he can’t feel its energy in the air or in the ground any longer but there’s a residual buzz he can feel just under his skin. He chalks it up to adrenaline instead as he tosses the handful of mountain ash away into the woods and fills in the hole in the ground with the rest of the dirt.

By the time he gets back to the motel room it’s been almost 20 minutes. His knees are muddied and his jacket is soiled up to his elbows. There are a few smudges of dirt around his neck, cheek and forehead when Allison points it out to him.

‘You said 10 minutes,’ she reminds him in a teasing manner as he makes his way towards the bathroom for a quick clean-up.

‘Took longer than I expected,’ he doesn’t sigh but it’s a near thing as he tries to wash the dirt stuck under his nails. His hands are still shaking and he doesn’t doubt that Allison’s already noticed.

‘So it’s done, then?’

‘I wouldn’t be back if it wasn’t.’ He feels tired suddenly, watches as the last smears of mud disappear down the drain along with his adrenaline.

‘We’re going to the Hale house after this – it’s secluded enough that people won’t go looking around that area since its private property.’

‘I’ve been there,’ he remembers the way the house looks ready to fall on its foundations with just the barest of nudges. ‘There aren’t any fences or gates to separate public land from private property so are you sure about that?’

‘I’m not but Derek is,’ she says with a shrug as he turns the tap off, uncaring that he’s still got mud on his clothes.

‘Good enough,’ he tries not to sigh again as he passes her to go back into the main area of the room. He gives the bed a longing glance but he knows that once he lies down he might not be as quick to get back up again so he forces down his urge to rest to proceed with their next step. ‘Let’s go, the drugs should’ve forced them into a heavy enough sleep that they won’t wake up from what we’re about to do next.’

‘Ready when you are,’ she tells him once she’s tied up her hair with quick movements.

It’s still daylight but the sun is already making its path down over the horizon and casting soft orange and red glows in the sky. Allison moves towards room 7 with her back facing the direction of where the office is located in case anybody might come along. Dylan moves quickly with the lock picking tools in his hands and tries to remember the twists and turns needed to get the door to unlock. He counts the second as it passes and reaches 43 when he hears a click and the gentle slide of the deadbolt coming loose. He pockets everything, keeps a hand close to the knife on his belt and takes a cautious step inside the room.

The TV is on, showing a replay of a football game from two nights ago, and on the couch there’s a man snoozing with one arm over his eyes. There’s another man with his head pillowed on his arms as he slouches over the dining table in the adjoining kitchen. The two single beds are occupied; one person under the covers while the other is lying across it with his feet still on the ground. When Dylan takes a look at the trolley there’s nothing left on their plates save for the odd smear of gravy that hasn’t been licked off.

‘Okay, the keys aren’t going to be a problem,’ Allison brings up as she points to the bedside table to where a set of car keys are located next to a cell phone and a wallet. ‘I can help you carry one, maybe two guys to the car but I can’t help you with all four.’

Dylan thins his lips as he reconsiders the situation and he’s thankful he broke the line of mountain ash earlier because now they need one of the werewolves to help them with the manual labor. ‘Call one of the guys to come by, just one. We don’t want to attract any more attention than we might already be getting just by being here.’

Allison makes the call and promises that Isaac will arrive in 10 minutes. It turns out he arrives in a little over 5.

‘Did you run here?’ Dylan asks him as soon as he’s in through the door.

‘Yeah, through the woods,’ he grins, barely even out of breath.

He finds himself feeling envious of the perks of becoming a werewolf but he reminds himself of the downsides and lets the jealousy slip away. ‘Take point; make sure there’s nobody around to see us transfer the guys into the car. If you think someone’s on their way over to our part of the motel then we stop and wait, got it?’

‘Got it,’ the sandy-haired blond nods as he drags the guy sleeping on the couch onto his feet and pulls one arm over his shoulder. The man slumps over his body like a drunkard and it’ll make a good enough excuse if anybody ever asks. Dylan is hoping nobody does.

It takes 5 minutes to load the men into the SUV, another minute to cable tie their arms and legs together, then a few minutes more to empty out the room until there’s absolutely nothing hunter-related left behind.

‘Both of you take the SUV, I’ll follow.’

Dylan watches as Allison drives the car out of the parking lot in the direction of where the Hale house is located. He waits in his own car for 5 minutes before going down a different road, opting to take the longer route towards the preserve. By the time he makes it there the woods around them is bathed in soft blues and greys; dusk has broken. It’s only 5 o’clock in the evening and the days are still short even though it’s almost spring.

Boyd is waiting for him on the porch but the SUV is gone.

‘Erica is taking care of the gear, Scott’s with Allison to get rid of the SUV.’ Boyd tells him as soon as he’s taken the first rickety step up onto the porch. The place is a damn health hazard but not just that, the entire earth is scorched and dead. No life and not even the usual hint of magic that is almost always present in the air.

He’s been to the house before but he’s never been this up close. It felt wrong even from a distance and now that he’s at the center of it he can’t help but feel as though he’s on the verge of crawling out of his skin. It feels devastating even for a human and he can’t imagine what any werewolf must be sensing. He definitely can’t begin to guess what Derek must be going through.

‘Points for scare factor,’ he appraises as he follows the boy inside until they’re making their way down the house into the basement. All four men are slumped over by the walls, chained together at their wrists and ankles. He wrinkles his nose at the smell; if the world above them is dead then this place is on a completely different level.

Derek is standing in the furthest corner of the room, observing, while Isaac is sitting nearby on the cluttered table full of wires and things he doesn’t want to pay close attention to. Boyd is still standing by the door, as though unwilling to go further unless necessary.

‘Anything in particular you want to know from them?’ Dylan asks Derek as he withdraws the switchblade by his belt and flips it open with a flick of his wrist.

‘I’ll leave it to you,’ the Alpha tells him as he eyes the knife and the hunters before making eye contact with him. ‘You’re the expert around here.’

‘Okay,’ he shrugs as he stabs the first hunter in his thigh and listens to his choked off screams. The others don’t wake.

\--

Not all hunters are guilty of breaking the code but most are. Not even Allison is exempt from it and most definitely not even him. He doesn’t take pleasure as he plays judge, jury and executioner because he knows that one day he’s going to meet his match and when that day comes he will die. He knows he’s going to bleed for every sin and every murder he’s committed. He knows he will suffer for every treason and for every wrong-doing he’s made over the years. He knows the life he lives is tainted and the only reason he’s still alive is because he’s living on borrowed time.

He’s counting down the seconds until he meets his match.

What he doesn’t know is that they’ve already met.

\--

There are two dead hunters in the basement and the smell is starting to rot the air. Isaac couldn’t stay and he doesn’t blame him for leaving. The others are still there and he can see that Erica is shaking, barely holding herself together. Her smirks and confident pose is gone, replaced by someone frail and young and all too scared. The only reason why she’s the next to leave the basement is because Boyd is the one to shepherd her out the room.

He remembers the first time he did this on his own. He lasted throughout the entire interrogation but he lost his breakfast and lunch once it was over and couldn’t stomach anything more than water and coffee for the next 2 days.

Allison is beside him and despite the sweat dotting across her forehead she is the image of calm and steady. Scott is standing to the side just three steps behind them and he’s angry. Dylan doesn’t have to be a werewolf to tell the boy’s furious, not with the way he’s clenching his hands until his knuckles are shaking with strain and the grit he has in his jaws, the way his eyes are narrowed and constantly flashing between a normal brown to a bright gold.

Dylan wakes the third man the same way he wakes the first and second, with a bloody knife and a strangled scream.

There’s pain, confusion and fear in the man’s eyes as he looks down at the knife still in his thigh and the hand it’s connected to.

‘You look like a man with answers,’ Dylan starts off casually as he relieves some pressure from the bleeding wound. 'Maybe you can tell me where Gerard is.'

‘Dylan, what are you doing?’ The man begs as he shifts and winces when the blade digs in further and further with each inch he tries to gain away from him.

‘It’s nothing personal, Dave,’ he watches as the man’s expression contorts into anger.

‘Bullshit,’ he spits, ‘why am I here?’

Dylan grabs the man by his hair and forces his head to the side to his fallen teammates. ‘You’re here because you know something the others don’t. This is your team; you’re privy to certain pieces of information the others aren’t and I’m going to use everything you taught me to get it out of you.’

The man’s anger fades as he takes in the bloody sight of the two dead men barely inches away from his own body. Their hearts have long stopped pumping but that doesn’t stop gravity from contributing to the growing puddle of blood around their feet.

‘What the fuck happened to you?’ Dave whispers shakily, voice full of horror, unable to tear his eyes away from the knife wounds inflicted on the recently departed.

‘You’re going to tell me,’ he prays as he employs every tactic he was trained in and a few things he learned on his own.

Dave doesn’t survive past the next 10 minutes.

He stares into the man’s dilated pupils and doesn’t look away in cowardice. He took the man’s life with his own hands, a fact that’s soaking through the cracks of his skin and steeping into his clothes. Not only that, he took away a loving husband and a devoted father to two children, none of whom know about the supernatural world and its business dealings. He doesn’t deserve to look away from the face of death because he doesn’t deserve redemption.

When he shifts to the side he finds Allison staring at the knife in his hand and the blood as it gleams on the blade. He offers it to her handle first and asks, ‘would you like to do the honors?’

He hears a growl from behind him but he ignores it as he focuses on the girl instead, watches as she shakes her head and finally tears her eyes away from the blood staining his hands. He nods.

‘Good, because this isn’t something you can come back from, no matter how much you try.’

‘Why are you looking for a guy named Gerard? What are you even looking for?’ She asks him after he’s moved over to the fourth and last hunter, her voice soft with curiosity and the smallest hints of awe and fear.

‘He's the man who stole my life,’ he says as he lifts the knife poised over the man’s thigh away from the femoral artery. He doesn’t tell her everything, partly because it’s not a burden he wants to share and also in part because he doesn’t think she’ll understand why he does the things he does, why he’s going through every hunter coming in through Beacon Hills in search of information on just one man.

The one who started it all.

Dylan braces himself for the oncoming scream that’s about to echo within the basement walls. He’s prepared for swearing, head-thrashing and aborted kicks but what he’s not expecting is for the man to come awake on his own. He stops short of plunging the knife into the man’s leg with barely a quarter-inch left of space between them.

Everybody watches in stunned silence as the man slowly comes to his senses and blearily takes in his surroundings. He stares at the boy and the bloody knife hovering over his leg and he stares at the girl over the boy’s shoulder with her eyes wide and lips parted in silent shock. He stares at the grey walls, the dirty ground and the cobwebs in the corners of the room. It’s not until he’s staring at the slack faces of his comrades that he fully jolts awake and returns his gaze at the boy but focuses solely on the girl.

‘You!’ He shouts and thrashes at the chains holding him against the wall. ‘I’m going to kill you!’

Dylan redirects the blade until its snug at the base of the man’s jaw, ready to cut at the slightest provocation.

The man is still glaring at Allison even though she’s not the one holding the knife and he’s breathing harshly through his clenched jaw until his spittle is coming through the gaps in his teeth; smokers’ affliction.

There’s a spark of magic in the air but no conduit to guide it. He recognizes the magic, knows this is the man who made the barrier around the motel, but doesn't recognize the man himself. He attributes it to one of his earlier recollections of training, more focused on emotions than memories itself.

He calls the man by his name to gain his focus but something shifts in his gaze, moving from fury to confusion until his eyes are wide with recognition.

‘You’re—’ Jonathan says with a choke, ‘but you’re an Argent.’

Dylan loses all the breath he has in his lungs as the hold on the knife slackens until it’s fallen out of his grip to clatter noisily on the floor. He’s unaware of the shake in his hands as the man continues to yell at her.

‘Working with the likes of those devils! Gerard won’t care you’re his granddaughter; he’ll kill you just like the rest of them.’

‘My grandpa? That's the Gerard you're looking for? I don’t understand what this—’

Dylan doesn’t let her finish, doesn’t care that she sounds just as confused as he feels. He just runs. He runs out of the basement, runs pass Erica, Boyd and Isaac in what used to be the living room, runs to his car and drives. He keeps driving and doesn’t stop driving until he’s clear of the Beacon Hills County with the welcome sign miles and miles behind him. His heart never stops racing, not even after he’s slammed the brakes on the car and he’s out of it, emptying what little contents he has in his stomach into the ditch by the roadside wondering how he could’ve missed something that big when it was practically right under his nose.

There are at least 5 phases to any plan that Dylan makes but not even all the contingencies in the world can prepare him for everything that’s happened tonight, and he has nobody to blame but himself.

\-----

Each person holds a unique scent – something that defines them for who they are – but each person also holds a base scent that is a mixture of their own personality and something that is inherited from both mother and father in the same manner that a child inherits certain physical traits. It fades over time as the person grows but it never disappears, it being a part of their DNA and genetic makeup.

Derek knows all about base scents, knows how to pick apart similarities and differences within a person. It’s a skill he was born with and learned how to handle as he grew, something he eventually perfected as the years rolled by. (In some cases, perfected a little bit too late.)

There is a familiarity within Dylan – his smell, his mannerisms, his appearances – a combination of things that all ring a bell, loud and clear. There is the feeling of trust and safety as well as fierce loyalty; characteristics that he’s only ever seen and experienced from in one man in his entire life, until now.

He wants to think it’s a coincidence that the sheriff of Beacon Hills County smells almost as similar to Dylan as the other does but he knows there are no such things as coincidences, not when he’s faced with all of the facts his senses have gathered for him.

After 12 years the missing son returns.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Before her mum passed away and before she knew anything and everything there was to know about what being a hunter involved Allison thought her family was pretty normal, or as normal as it can be. She thought her mum was just a normal housewife who takes care of her family and keeps order in her home. She thought her dad just worked a normal job as a private security consultant as well as a federally licensed firearms dealer, while a little bit peculiar was still at least legal. She thought her grandpa was just a normal old man, retired and living out the last of his days travelling around the country because “it’s what he’s always wanted to do”.

Little did she know.

There are a lot of things she doesn’t know about her family, and the worst part is that she’s only just seen the tip of the iceberg.

\-----

**Chapter 7**

\-----

Words are powerful. Words hold meaning. Words have the ability to strengthen a person’s resolve or send their beliefs crumbling into something meaningless. But words are not the only things that can help as easily as it can hinder. The emotions that are spoken within those words hold just as much power, hold just as much control – they are pure in its form and are forever binding.

They can be devastating.

For Dylan, it was life-changing.

Every night before he goes to sleep he reminds himself of what he’s doing and all the reasons why. He makes himself remember all the faces of the men and women he’s killed because he doesn’t deserve to have the peace of mind of closing his eyes and not see them stare right back at him. He plays the sound of their screams, their tears, their pleading, crying and begging in his mind like a sick, sad lullaby because he doesn’t deserve to dwell in silence. He makes himself recall the weight of their dead bodies as he carries and buries them into the ground because he doesn’t deserve to forget the weight of their deaths piling up on top of his shoulders. Every night he dredges up conversations he’s had with each of the people he’s murdered, some revolving around special occasions or even just the simple day-to-day shenanigans of their families, but the one conversation that sticks out the most is the one he was never meant to hear.

Gerard Argent was his mentor, has been a constant presence in his life for as long as he can remember. The man took over the position of father-figure when he had none to call his own, helped him grow into the role of hunter, taught him everything he knew, and guided him when he needed a helping hand. Dylan thought the world of him – until he was betrayed. The man who he would’ve given his life to protect was nothing but a liar and a manipulative bastard who had only been using him for almost his entire life.

All for what?  Just because he has a _spark_.

He’d left San Francisco looking for answers and he swore he’d do whatever it takes to get them and get back the life he was owed.

Circumstances led him to Beacon Hills, to working with the local pack, to cooperating with the hunter who turned out to not only have connections to the man he’s after but is also related to him through her father.

He was taught to always check for loose ends, to verify facts, to remain unbiased and to always pay closer attention to things easily dismissed. Obviously he had a lapse of concentration somewhere along the way.

There’s nothing left to do but to learn from his past mistakes and move on. Dylan can’t go back to his apartment, it’s not safe anymore but he’s thankful he has a backup laptop in the hidden compartment of his trunk along with two handguns and two spare magazines. It’s not optimal but he’ll have to make the best of what he’s got.

The laptop only has 64 minutes of battery life left and he needs to use that time to find the address of where Allison is staying and work from there. He’s not sure if Gerard is staying with the family but any information is better than nothing and right now he has absolutely nothing. There’s no phone to track and no other living relative within Beacon Hills, at least, none that he knows about. It’s been over a month since his arrival here and he doesn’t doubt that Gerard is still around the county. He also doesn’t doubt that he’ll be with company.

He hacks into the local school’s databank and starts searching for “Argent”.  He expects to find her grades, the kind of classes she takes, extra-curricular activities followed by personal details such as phone numbers, emergency contacts and a home address. What he ends up with are 2 results – the student: Allison Argent, and the school principle: Gerard Argent.

Dylan almost hates himself for missing so many key facts.

It’s a little past 6 o’clock on a school night and assuming Gerard takes his job as school principle seriously then it’s a given that he’ll be on campus until the later hours doing administrative paperwork. Dylan decides to take his chances – if he finds him then it ends tonight. If not then there’s always tomorrow to consider.

He switches the laptop off and leaves it on the passenger side under the seat before starting the car and making his way back into Beacon Hills. He drove at a reckless speed trying to get out of Beacon Hills and made it out of the county in a little over half an hour. He figures he can make it back by 7pm without earning himself a ticket because the last thing he wants is to waste time and end up getting logged in the system because of something as mundane as speeding.

It’s dark by the time he rolls back into town, the sun’s already disappeared over the horizon, but it’s still lively with people hurrying home for dinner or doing some last minute grocery shopping. The restaurants he passes are almost at full capacity with paying customers all wining and dining their money’s worth.

When he drives pass the school he notices the gates are still open with only two cars in the spacious parking lot. He doesn’t know who they belong to and he doesn’t imagine he’ll be lucky enough to find out whether they belong to Gerard or not. All he can do is keep on driving until he’s a block away from the school field and go in from there.

He gives both the handguns a quick check-through, makes sure the magazines are full before fastening a gun into the holster under his jacket and strapping the other one into the leather band of his boots. He’s short one knife but at least he still has one as opposed to none at all.

It’s eerie being in school at night. What is normally a bustling place for teenagers to spend their weekdays is now a quiet building full of winding hallways and shut doors. There are no noises and nobody around as far as he can see and hear. He’s careful with every step he makes and quiet with every breath he takes, he can’t afford to have a repeat of what happened in the hunters’ apartments, not again.

Dylan isn’t familiar with the building, doesn’t know the floor plan and can’t even begin to guess where the staff offices are located. He walks, keeps his back to the wall and one hand close to his chest until he eventually reaches the lobby and finds a handy layout of the school. He locates the offices on the far side of the campus with a staff parking area nearby next to the nurses’ station and gym, practically right where he first started.

After memorizing the map he opts to take a different route, keeping to where the shadows are darkest with one ear trained for any noises. The rustle of fabric from his clothes is minimal and he steps lightly enough that no sound from his shoes are made. His heart is beating a slightly faster tempo than normal and while it seems loud in his ears he knows no ordinary human will be able to hear it.

He passes through what looks like the English department of the school campus and stops when he sees a faint glow coming from around the corner down the hall. He takes in an involuntary breath of air as he eyes the yellow light and hears two voices speaking softly to one another, male and female. They’re speaking too lowly for him to catch any particular words in their conversation and the cadence is muted enough that he can’t tell whether or not they’re who he’s after. He keeps a hand close to his chest, inching closer and closer to his gun holster he has hiding under his jacket.

There’s less than a classroom’s length left till he reaches the end of the halfway when he hears a man’s unfamiliar voice bidding the lady goodnight and watches as his shadow walks away toward where he knows the staff parking is located. Dylan stays where he is, back pressed against the door and listens to whatever else the woman might be doing.

He can hear pens and pencils clattering and the sound of paper tapping against the table in an attempt to reorganize them. He can hear her heels crack against the linoleum floor as she crosses the room and the eventual click of metal like a briefcase being snapped shut. There’s the sound of a zipper being pulled and a softer tick of plastic he’s not sure of. The lights eventually go out, casting the entire floor back into shadow and darkness. He blinks against the change in lighting and it takes him a moment to realize that there are no footsteps to follow her out.

The next thing he sees is a flash of light shining into his eyes. He brings up an arm to act as a shield, catches the woman’s figure bathed in shadow and listens as she chuckles at him, her familiar voice sending shivers to crawl along his spine.

‘You know, we were wondering when you were going to show up. Sure like to take your time, huh?’

Dylan doesn’t get the chance to take out his gun when the flashlight clicks off and she’s running away, her laugh echoing down the hallways tauntingly. He chases after her even though he knows it’s a trap, knows that she’s leading him towards a part of the school that he won’t be able to utilize as effectively as he would any other location. He knows it’s a trap, but the truth is that he practically lost the minute he stepped inside her territory.

Each hallway they’re running through looks almost exactly the same as all the other hallways they’ve passed. He can hear her just three classrooms ahead of him, constantly laughing like she’s playing a game, pretending to be the mouse being chased after when, really, she’s the cat egging him on.

When Kate disappears around the next corner he stops. He can’t hear her laughter or her footsteps or even the swish of material from her clothes. He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him around the corner and he’s not keen on experiencing a bullet to the head.

He takes out the gun from his holster, belatedly, and then checks off the safety. He doesn’t want to fire off any weapons while on school grounds but he doesn’t want to put his own life at risk either so he’s taking as many precautions as he can while he’s edging his way closer towards his blind spot. He goes low and aims high as he rounds the corner but all he sees is an open doorway leading out into the school field and a figure running across it heading for the gym.

It’s a trap, he knows it’s a trap, but he doesn’t feel as though he’s got any other choice but to go on ahead even without a plan, compromising everything as he goes.

Dylan takes chase after her, watches as the double doors don’t quite slam shut after her. He shakes his head and tries to find a less obvious way in, bypassing the doors completely to run along the side of the building that’s darkened with shadows. He finds a possible entry through the boys’ locker rooms and tests the door with a gentle hand to ease it open. It’s not locked but he doesn’t have time to wonder if that’s normal or not as he strains his ears for any noises coming from the gym. He doesn’t.

He exits the locker rooms with his gun facing down and eyes focused on the gym’s double doors. He doesn’t see the kick aimed at his hands until the gun’s knocked out of his grip and there’s pain stinging along his arms. He shakes it off with a hard kick at the locker room door, shoving it towards Kate and watches as it clips her sides and sends her stumbling into the bulletin board, the flashlight falling out of her grip to clatter noisily on the floor. She doesn’t break through the glass though, and her face is twisted in fury once she’s gotten her feet right back under her again.

She’s just as quick and ruthless as he remembered from the last time he saw her 2 years ago, but he’s had time to grow into his long limbs and years of being underestimated because of his slight build has taught him to use the opponents’ expectations against them.

He’s not below petty tricks so as soon as he’s within reach of her hair he yanks and holds on tight. She yells as she elbows him in his ribs, forcing him back a step and he barely has enough footing to sidestep the heel of her shoes from digging into his toes. He’s still got a firm grip of her hair but she twists until she’s facing him with a manic look on her face and starts aiming her nails at his eyes.

The gym’s door handle slams into his back and he lets go of her hair when one of her claws draw blood at the skin beneath his eye. Dylan raises an arm to block her swinging punch and hears her stutter a cry of shock when her knuckles make hard impact with the wood behind him. The door gives way from under their combined weight and he’s stumbling back, barely steadies himself in time to get a grip around her boot before it lands on his chest. He twists her leg, feels the floor shake as her body meets the ground and listens to the echo of her shout around the gym. He doesn’t give her time to get up or catch her breath; he straddles her, forces her down with his knees on her forearms and aims a hard punch to her face. Her breath gets knocked out of her as she falls back down onto the floor, the side of her head cracking against the wood.

He stands and catches a shadow standing at the entrance of the gym too late when a loud blast from a gun being fired catches him in the arm. He topples backwards away from Kate’s body and swears under his breath as he clutches his bicep, feels blood seep through his fingers.

‘I’d like to say how nice it is to see you again but after seeing you K.O my daughter I’m feeling a little bit less generous,’ the man tells him balefully as he ambles towards them, gun still in hand ready to fire off the next shot.

He snorts and mentally assesses his wound. ‘She’s not exactly in her prime anymore. You sure you made the right choice by putting her up as your second?’

‘I didn’t really have a choice, seeing as my protégé turned tail and ran off.’

‘You used me!’ He shouts as he surges to his feet, uncaring that the gun is still pointing in his direction.

The old man frowns with incomprehension. ‘You were made for this life.’

‘It was my choice and you took that away from me.’

Gerard gives a derogative laugh. ‘You should be grateful to me – I gave you a purpose. Without me you would’ve been another useless child wasting your life being part of the mediocre. Why do you want that when you can be _extraordinary_?’

He seethes as he tightens the grip on his bleeding arm, lets the pain focus his attention on the man he once called his mentor. ‘I don’t care what you gave me. I only care that you took everything away from me.’

‘Ungrateful,’ the man mutters to himself as he nudges Kate awake with the toe of his shoe. ‘I’d like to chalk this up to teenage rebellion but I suppose this has been a long time coming.’

Dylan pauses, lets the words sink into his head and gain momentum. When it settles he can’t help but feel like a fool.

‘You knew,’ he says lowly and feels his body shake with excess adrenaline. He can feel his blood still slipping through his fingers and soaking the arm of his jacket but he’s thankful that the bullet only grazed him and not through him.

‘You don’t think I haven’t noticed you around town? You’re discreet, I’ll give you that, and I’m old but I’m not blind.’

Kate groans as she comes awake, gingerly touching her cheek as she sits by her father’s feet. It takes her only a few moments for her to shake the grogginess out of her system before she’s standing at full height looking down at him with a smirk and a haughty look despite the blood on her teeth and lips.

‘Got me good, kid,’ she admits with a casual shrug as she continues to pat the blossoming bruise on her face. ‘I remember when you were still a snot-nosed little brat crying for your mummy and daddy. Now you’re all grown up and looking very fine.’

He returns her smirk. ‘Sorry, Kate, but you’re a bit too ripe for me.’

She makes a displeased noise at the back of her throat as she stands with her hands clenched and her feet ready to close the small distance between them to continue their earlier fight. She doesn’t get the chance, not when Gerard’s gun is ripped out of his grip and Kate ends up receiving another hit on her head from the butt of a gun.

The ground shakes as she falls for the second time and Dylan is stunned to see a third Argent in the room with them, only this time he’s not on the receiving end of having the barrel of a gun pointed to his face.

‘This isn’t any of your business, Chris,’ Gerard glowers as he stares down his son unflinchingly.

He ignores his father. ‘Do you remember all those times when you told me that I didn’t make a very good son? I didn’t think you’d go out of your way to make one in your image.’

‘The boy is gifted – I would’ve traded him for you on any given day.’

If the man is hurt by his father’s words then he’s doing a good job of not showing any of it. ‘No, you didn’t trade for him; you _stole_ him. Kidnapped him and brainwashed him into being a part of this community. It goes against the Code! It goes against all of our morals!’

He shakes his head and curls his lips disdainfully at his son. ‘No, not our morals – just yours.’

With a kind of speed that belies the old man’s age he pushes the gun away from his face with one hand and aims a jab at his throat with another. Chris chokes and Dylan watches as Gerard twists his hand and takes hold of the gun, pointing it at his own son’s head.

Dylan feels his stomach drop and a terrible shiver take over his body. He wants to close his eyes and turn away from seeing a father murder his own son but then he hears Allison’s voice crying out for them and sees her suddenly running in through the doors from the school field. A host of armed police officers follow behind her after one of them forcefully drags her back out of the fray, screaming and kicking in the man’s arms.

‘ _Freeze_!’ They shout in unison, guns pointed at Gerard.

He runs on instinct and shoulders his way through the doors closest to him, trying to get away in the ensuing chaos of red and blue lights. He hurries past the boys’ locker room, ignores his gun still on the ground and tries to find his way back into the confusing hallways and corridors to lose any pursuers he might have. He hears running footsteps after him, just the one set, and he’s about to jump down a flight of stairs when he feels a firm grip pull on the collar of his jacket and tug him back forcefully.

The momentum sends him onto his knees and he looks up at the man holding him down. The sheriff stares back in shock, his face showing none of the fury he normally reserves for criminals and delinquents, only alarm. His jacket slips through the man’s fingers and Dylan uses that opportunity to run and keep on running even though everything in him told him to _stay_.

He watched a man reject his son in every way, almost resorting to killing him just to tie off loose ends. Dylan doesn’t want to go through that same rejection from a man he thinks might be his own father.

\-----

The family photo album he holds in his hands is worn and well-loved. He flips through the pages of his family, still young and whole and he lingers on the image of his son and late wife.

There aren’t any photos of his boy past the young age of 5, the book having stopped growing with his disappearance. It’s hard for John to reconcile the image of his laughing 5 year old son and the scared young adult he saw bathed in red and blue lights at the school in the middle of the night. It’s difficult but for the memory of his late wife he tries.

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

\-----

**Chapter 8**

\-----

Everybody experiences motions of fear. For some that fear may be miniscule while for others it can be paralyzing. It can be fleeting and it can be a constant struggle. Fear is uncontrollable and unpredictable. It strikes at a person’s core; at their most beloved – is contagious and uncontainable. Fear ruins.

Dylan knows fear intimately. He has experienced it and he has made others experience it. He fears disappointment and the pain that comes with it, he fears for his life and the possibility of death, he fears weapons of every sort and the ability it grants to hurt, damage and kill. He fears lack of knowledge, he fears solitude, he fears people; hunters and werewolves alike. He fears many things, all within reason but he has never felt this kind of fear before; fear for a man he hardly knows. It’s incomprehensible because they’ve never spoken to one another, and save for that one night, they’ve never met prior.

Never in his life has he ever experienced this kind of fear; a fear of rejection, until now.

He fights to control the shake in his limbs as he sews the laceration on his bicep shut. An expert could’ve done it in 9 stitches or less but it takes him 15 due to the unevenness of the stitching and the constant tremor in his fingers, having to redo more than a couple to make sure it stays together. He grits his teeth as he applies another coat of disinfectant before covering his arm with gauze. He’ll need to check it again in about an hour but for now he has to think about what to do next.

Returning to Beacon Hills is out of the question, not if he wants to be charged for fleeing a crime scene. He knows he’s a criminal but he’s never had to apply the term “fugitive” to his name until tonight.

The motel room he rented is small with hardly enough room to do the pacing he wants. He feels agitated and anxious, still running on more than a little bit of adrenaline from the night’s earlier events. It’s almost claustrophobic and he has to force himself to take slow, deep breaths or lest he spiral into a panic attack, something he hasn’t suffered from since he learned how to properly handle himself as a rookie hunter.

He’s not sure what’s going to happen to Gerard, Kate and Chris but it’s most likely that they’re all apprehended, placed in a holding cell for the next 24 hours. Kate, with all the bruising, will look like a victim; he wouldn’t put it past her if she played damsel in distress to get out of being charged for any crime. Chris might be charged for assault if Kate points the finger at him but Gerard could end up being charged with the intent to kill, seeing as he was the one who pointed a gun at his own son’s head when the police barged in.

It’s almost ironic.

He wills himself to take in a deep breath and calm – the immediate danger has passed now that he’s miles and miles away from Beacon Hills and anything to do with the Argent family. As soon as he exhales and settles on his bed he suddenly feels wrung out and impossibly exhausted as he always does after finishing a job but it feels different this time, more final.

Nobody gets out of the hunting business unless they die.

Dylan wonders what will happen if he were to disappear.

\--

To lead a normal life is a luxury, Dylan finds after a while, because it means not having to look over his shoulder constantly for a threat that may or may not be there. It means being able to go out into the open and not fear that someone or something is going to came after him and take his life. It means doing the things he wants to do and not because it needs to be done to ensure his survival. It means living, in every sense of the word.

Dylan wants that but he’s not sure if he can, or if he’s even allowed.

As he drives his way back into Beacon Hills he figures he’s going to find out soon.

\--

He double-parks, doesn’t even bother to take the keys out of ignition as he closes the door behind him and walks straight into the police station. He feels jittery with nerves but he forges on, ignoring the bewildered looks some of the police officers sitting in their patrol cars are giving him. They can give him a ticket if they want, it doesn’t amount to much with all the crimes he’s done in the past.

‘I’d like to make a confession,’ he says as soon as he’s within hearing range of the person sitting behind the receptionists’ area.

The lady behind the desk snorts at him. ‘We’re not a church, kid.’

‘I was at the school the night Gerard Argent was detained, along with his son and daughter. I ran.’

‘Holy sh—’ she cuts off and jumps to her feet, one hand already reaching for a pair of handcuffs clipped onto her belt. She holds a hand out to him as she rounds the desk as though it would stop him from running away again. He turns around and offers his arms without protest and listens as she reads him the Miranda rights.

‘Do you understand the rights that I’ve read to you?’ She asks as soon as she’s finished and the cuffs are sitting snugly around his wrists.

‘Yes.’

\--

He’s aware of the crimes he’s committed – abduction, homicide, theft, possession of stolen property just to name a few – and as he sits in the interrogation room waiting for an officer of the law to come along to begin their questioning he’s also aware that his life is basically over.

Not that he ever had one to begin with.

Dylan can’t help but feel scared as he listens to the numbing silence surrounding him. He knows there’s someone watching him from behind the two-way mirror, or maybe it’s just his overactive imagination getting the best of him. He wonders if the sheriff is in the room next door and just the thought of it is enough to make a cold sweat break across his forehead.

He flexes his arms, lets the pain in his bicep take control and overcome his fear.

Fear ruins, but it only ruins if he lets it. The saying goes that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. He hopes it works.

The door opens and he almost jumps out of his seat when the sheriff is the one to step through it with a thin folder in hand. The man avoids eye contact with him as he slides his chair out and sits directly opposite him. He unclips the pen from the folder and opens it, taking his time putting the papers, what little of it, into order as he clicks the pen on and off and on again.

Neither of them speaks.

Eventually, the sheriff turns to a blank report page and puts the pen to paper.

‘Name?’

He pauses momentarily but answers when the older man finally looks up to meet his eyes. ‘Dylan O’Brien.’

The man clarifies his spelling as he scribbles it down then moves on to the next question. ‘Date of birth.’

‘August 13, 1995.’

The sheriff drops the pen and sighs, rubbing a hand down along his face and looking years and years older when he pulls his hand away to look at the paper in front of him with unseeing eyes. The gesture confuses Dylan for a moment before he remembers who he’s taking to and why he’s here. It’s a long while before the questions continue and by the time half an hour passes Dylan has developed a small crick in his back and shoulders from being handcuffed so long. The pain medication he took earlier is starting to wear off and his bicep is beginning to hurt in earnest. He makes a subtle shift in his posture as he answers the question of where his current place of residence is, to which he tells him he’s basically living out of a suitcase.

Not that he had time to go back to his apartment and pack when he fled Beacon Hills the other night. All he had in the car was a jacket and a dirty shirt he must’ve thrown into the back seat somewhere along the way between San Francisco and here.

The older man pauses in his writing, eyes focused on his injured bicep, and of course he notices; he wouldn’t be given the role of sheriff if he didn’t notice something as miniscule as the way a person changes their sitting position. He surprises Dylan by getting up and going behind him to take off the handcuffs and he can’t help but let out a small noise of gratitude as his arms regain full mobility again. The sheriff goes back to sit down, leaving the handcuffs on the table as he picks up the pen and resumes the questioning once more. Dylan soothes the reddened skin of his wrists as he tells the man that he originally came from San Francisco.

The pen drops for the second time in half an hour. ‘What did you come here for, son?’

The term sends shivers down his back, fills a hole inside of him he didn’t even realize was so pitifully empty until this very moment. Dylan isn’t sure if the man meant it in general – something he says to kids he sees everyday – or if it’s an accidental slip of the tongue.

It doesn’t matter.

He’s never felt so hopeful before in his entire life.

It’s obvious the sheriff is affected, too, though he seems to look sheepish, as if he hadn’t meant to say it and is ashamed he let go the way he did.

Dylan wants him to call him that again but instead he says with a shaky voice, ‘I came to Beacon Hills looking for some answers.’

‘And did you find it?’

There was hope in that question and Dylan can see it in the man’s eyes, could hear it in the words and catch it in the man’s posture, leaning just slightly forwards as opposed to away. Dylan arrived in Beacon Hills angry and looking to take back what he was owed. He didn’t realized there was more waiting for him in Beacon Hills than chasing after a past he can’t ever get back. He didn’t realize that maybe he has a future here instead.

‘I have.’

Of course, he remembers all the blood he’s spilled over the years and he thinks his future here looks pretty damn bleak.

\--

He gets off with a warning for fleeing the scene of the crime, seeing as he’s still a minor and was probably scared shitless by the sheer number of police officers dressed in riot gear, and he doesn’t know what to do with that. He thinks of all the dead people he’s had to bury, all the blood he has on his hands, and all he’s getting is a warning? It’s not even going under his official record.

Dylan honestly doesn’t know what to do with that as he numbly signs himself out and takes a shaky step out of the building. He notices the five parking tickets sitting on his windshield but it barely registers on his mind as he takes them and sits quietly in his car feeling more than a little dumbstruck.

He’s aware people are staring at him but he honestly doesn’t care what they think.

There’s a tap on his window and he jumps, notices Sheriff Stilinski leaning down to his eye-level and he almost trips trying to get out of the car thinking maybe they were playing a joke on him and he really _is_ arrested for everything.

They stare at each other and Dylan feels as if his heart is about to beat right out of his chest. He can’t help but feel a little ridiculous but it’s incomparable to the building panic he feels in his system. His arm doesn’t hurt anymore, possibly because he’s got other things to worry about.

‘Do you have a place to stay?’ The older man asks. ‘You told me you were living out of your suitcase.’

‘I—’ the words stick in his throat. He wants to say something, anything, but he’s coming up with a blank.

‘I’ve got a guest room, if you want it,’ he adds after almost a minute of silence passes.

He means to say that he’ll think about it but what actually comes out is, ‘no, thanks. I’ve got it covered.’

He’s never felt the urge to hit himself until now.

The older man looks disappointed but is quick to cover it up with an understanding nod. ‘Take care of yourself, then.’

‘You too…’

He watches as the sheriff trudges his way back into the police station, almost stopping to look over his shoulder once but he disappears back inside instead while Dylan is still standing next to his car with all five parking tickets in hand.

He really doesn’t know what to do with this but he makes a stop at the bank to pay off the accumulated fines for starters.

\--

He doesn’t know why but the second stop he makes after the bank is to find Chris Argent who was let go after his bail was paid for – by his daughter. He doesn’t know the man but if he’s like Allison in the way that they both follow the Code as best as they can then he knows he can trust him, even if only for a little while.

Allison is the one who opens the door and is wide-eyed and open-mouthed with shock. He shuffles his weight from one foot to another and wonders what he can say to her when Chris appears behind her and looks almost as surprised as she does.

Chris eventually clears his throat and ushers his daughter inside and out of the way so he can open the door fully. ‘Come on in.’

Dylan feels his nerves buzzing right under his skin as he takes his first step inside the house. It’s…homey, and he can’t help but quirk his lips up a little as the older man guides him towards the living room for a seat.

‘Anything you want to eat or drink?’

The offer of food reminds him that he hasn’t had much to eat over the past couple of days but he doesn’t feel as though he can stomach anything, not with his nerves working on overtime. He shakes his head, sees Allison from the corner of his eyes hovering by the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, unsure whether she’s allowed to stay or if she has to go occupy herself somewhere else within the house.

When Chris takes the seat right across from him he notices that Allison is suddenly inconspicuously absent.

‘How’s the throat,’ Dylan opens the conversation with a pointed look at the light bruising on the older man’s neck.

‘How’s the arm?’ He counters with a tight-lipped smile.

His arm twitches at the mention and he sucks in a deep breath to steady himself. He probably shouldn’t have started with small talk especially since he’s not here for that.

He exhales. ‘What’s going to happen to Gerard and Kate?’

Chris tenses slightly at the names of his family, looking equal parts devastated and furious. He sighs, ‘Kate has a few minor charges to her name and she’ll be serving some time for it but she’ll get out, eventually.’

He nods.

‘As for Gerard…what he did to you is wrong, and he’ll go away for a long time if you confess to it.’

He swallows and shakes his head. ‘I can’t do that.’ He can’t bear the thought of the sheriff finding out every wrong he’s done even though he’d been willing before. His courage has completely fled from him.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Chris tells him, leaning forward in his seat as he tries to explain with his palms out in an imploring gesture and an intense look in his eyes. ‘Going away on charges of kidnapping is relatively minor compared to all the other things he’s done. If he rats out on you he rats out on everyone. He’ll be exposing the entire hunter community, and not just that, everything about the supernatural world as well. Unless he wants to rain chaos on the entire world he’ll keep his mouth shut. If he implicates you then he implicates himself, and me, and Kate, and Allison. This is a domino effect that will affect all of us, not just his pride.’

Dylan swallows again, feels whatever twisted knot in his stomach give way in relief. ‘Okay, say I confess, what then?’ He asks unsteadily.

‘We go to trial,’ he answers without a hint of remorse.

‘And?’

The older man’s expression shifts as he stares at Dylan in bemusement and with raised eyebrows, not comprehending the question or why he’s asking for more clarification. Eventually his appearance settles into one of remorse as he slowly shakes his head.

‘I can’t tell you what to do next; that’s up to you. You can choose to stay as you are, as Dylan O’Brien, or you can go back to the life you had before.’

He loosens the tight grip he had on the edge of the couch he didn’t realize he’d been desperately holding onto for support, feeling breathless as he asks, ‘What happens after?’

Chris shrugs. ‘Nothing – you go back to being the sheriff’s son and Dylan O’Brien disappears.’

‘Oh.’ He feels hope grow in his chest; a second chance for a different life.

So maybe he can disappear after all, since Dylan never really existed in the first place.

\--

The apartment is paid for three months in advance – the first month to act as an initial deposit and the next two months as bond in case of a breach in contract, i.e. early termination. Dylan only stayed there for just a little under 2 months and it was, well…it was actually kind of homey, as Allison said.

It takes him three days to aerate all the rooms in the apartment and tidy up after himself. He checks and double-checks each room, making sure he left absolutely nothing behind that might be incriminating. He takes his time with cleaning, and while he can’t ensure he’ll be getting rid of every hint of black powder, gun oil or wolfsbane from within the apartment he can guarantee the place will be cleaner than when he first got it.

He leaves the apartment with exactly the same amount of duffel bags as he arrived in – one for his clothes, one for his laptop and another for his assortment of weapons; something he’ll be needing to get rid of soon.

There’s a fine tremor in his limbs as he makes his way towards the suburbs, a feeling that grows and intensifies when he finally spots a police cruiser at the address he’d asked from the lady behind the desk earlier that day. He slows to a stop just two houses away and kills the engine before he can change his mind about driving off. He gets out of the car, takes his duffle bag of clothes with him before he can consider leaving and never coming back. He goes up to the door and knocks before he can second-guess himself for the umpteenth time that day.

When the door opens he feels his heartbeat ratchet up and his words clog his throat. He can’t remember the last time he felt this terrified.

‘Dylan?’

‘Is that guest room still available?’ He asks before he says something else he doesn’t mean to.

The older man’s expression softens as he widens the door for him. ‘Yes, it is.’

Dylan feels hope grow in his chest where nothing but anger had once festered.

\--

The trials make national news and Gerard confesses to both attempted murder as well as kidnapping, just as Chris said he would. When asked if he regrets the choices that led him to sit here in this courtroom he remains silent but keeps his eyes solely focused on Dylan.

The judge clears his throat and repeats the question again. ‘Mr. Argent, do you regret—’

‘No.’

Dylan grits his teeth at the sound of whispered outrage and the constant click of cameras coming from the audience sitting in the stands. The juries are whispering to one another as their gazes flicker back and forth between them. The judge shakes his head at the disturbance and has to pound the gavel over a dozen times before order is restored within the courtroom.

He doesn’t realize Sheriff Stilinski’s hand is on his shoulder until he feels the pressure of the man’s offering of comfort and strength. Dylan draws in a breath and tries to control the shake in his hands when he’s called to the stand to relay to the jury what he lived through for the past 12 years.

Of course, he omits a fair share of it.

\--

There are voices downstairs but he doesn’t move from where he’s sitting back on the bed with his suit still on and a book in his lap. He feels tired even though it’s still early in the afternoon just past lunch time. He barely ate more than a few bites of his takeaway before putting it into the fridge and going upstairs to hide himself away from the world for a while.

It started with just a crew or two of reporters outside the house but over the past few weeks as the trial progressed the crowd grew and grew until there are just under a dozen vans situated outside the house waiting for him and the sheriff to come out and answer a few questions. It’s easy to think of them as just white noise but he can still see the flash of their cameras every time he closes his eyes.

He tries to breath around the overwhelming sensation of choking under pressure but he manages to hold off the impending panic attack from taking full control of his body. He doesn’t know how long it takes him but by the time he gets his bearings back the voices from downstairs are gone and the sheriff is standing by the doorway watching him with a mixture of concern and sadness.

Instead of being asked whether he’s okay or not the older man points to the book and quirks his lips into the beginnings of a smile. ‘I don’t suppose you remember any of it?’

He looks down at the family photos, to the boy with the same constellations of moles on his face as him, to the man he recognizes as the sheriff and a woman who he hasn’t seen around the house once since he asked to stay here. He thinks something happened to her but he’s afraid to ask; afraid to find out about the woman who might be his mother and who he can’t even remember.

Dylan shakes his head, unable to find any words to express what he’s feeling as he closes the book to hide away the loving smile of a beautiful mother.

The sheriff sighs tiredly as he steps inside the room to sit on the bed beside him. ‘Scott came by; he wanted to see you. Do you remember Scott?’

The only Scott he knows is the werewolf who is currently dating a hunter. He shakes his head again because he doesn’t think they’re one and the same.

‘He’s not here,’ the older man tells him when he notices him looking over towards the doorway. ‘I told him you’ve had a long day, and that you’ll find him when you’re ready.’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ Dylan finally speaks and wishes the other didn’t look so hurt and devastated by his words. He doesn’t want to give false hope by saying something he doesn’t mean.

It’s nothing like the movie suggests, nothing like it at all, where all the person needs to do to unlock lost memories is to look at something treasured or stay in a certain place for a few days.

It’s been weeks.

Dylan can’t recall a single thing about the childhood home he lived in for the first five years of his life.

He finds it difficult, feeling like an outsider in a house that should’ve been his home, sleeping in a room that was once his and staying with a man who is biologically his father but is, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger to him. He hates what his life was turned into.

‘You can talk to me. You can ask me whatever you want,’ the older man tells him after what feels like hours of silence.

He wishes it didn’t sound like he was begging.

‘How come you’re not jumping at the chance to fill me in on everything I missed?’ He asks as he tightens his grip on the family album, desperation clawing at his insides to find out if the man even cares for him at all. They’ve spent days and weeks under the same roof, toeing around each other and speaking to one another only when necessary. Part of him is afraid to know more about himself and about his family but there’s the other part of him that can feel the empty spaces and blank pieces of where his life should be.

He wants to feel angry but right now he’s just tired.

‘If I found you five years ago, or hell, even last year, I would’ve told you everything,’ he confesses, exhaustion screaming from every line of his body, ‘but it’s different now.’

‘In what way?’

He exhales quietly as he leans forward to lay a shaking hand on his shoulder. ‘I can tell you’re overwhelmed and the last thing I want to do is to put pressure on you to try and be someone you’re not. You’ve got a lot on your plate and I don’t want to add to that. To be frank, I’m just happy you’re back.’

Dylan’s body moves before the action registers in his mind. He can feel the corners of the photo album digging into his stomach as he hugs his father but he doesn’t care, he just holds on as tightly as he can while tears gather in his eyes.

He’s never had anybody that’s happy for him, _because_ of him.

What they have, the bond they share, is tentative and on shaky foundation but he wants to work for it, he wants them to be father and son, he wants to be family again. He _wants_.

‘Son, as much as I’d like to continue hugging I’m not as limber as I used to be and my back is kind of hurting.’

He coughs and lets go, sniffing into the sleeve of his suit as he picks up the photo album from between them and sets it down onto the bedside table before it drops onto the floor from his accidental carelessness.

‘You said I can ask you anything,’ he brings up as he picks at the corners of his duvet. ‘Can you tell me about her? What happened to her, I mean? To m-mum,’ he stutters over the foreign word and feels embarrassed suddenly.

His dad replies by picking up the photo album and turning to one of the last few pages. ‘What do you see when you look at her?’

‘She’s…’ he pauses as he stares into warm brown eyes and a smile full of laughter and happiness. ‘She looks kind, like she’s the sort of person who’ll help anybody even if they don’t ask.’ His blush deepens as he slowly looks up from the photo to the man in front of him. He sees sadness and love in his expression, both for the woman in the photos and to him as well.

‘She is a godsend,’ he tells him as he runs his fingers through Dylan’s hair, resting his hand at the base of his head in a comforting hold, ‘and so are you.’

\--

They spend the rest of the afternoon in his room, lying on his bed side by side. It can barely hold them but they don’t care. They don’t care that either one of their legs is constantly falling off the edge of the bed because there’s no other place they’d rather be.

Dylan learns that his mother died of cancer when he was just 10 and he tries to swallow the lump that’s suddenly formed in his throat at the revelation. He hardly knew her and he’s sad he’ll never get the chance to meet her again. His dad leaves but he comes back with video tapes of their family, the first 5 years of it anyway. It’s not much; would never be as good or as close to the real thing but it’s all they’ve got left.

‘Your mother and I watched it a lot during the years you were away. It was hard but we were firm in the belief that you’ll eventually come back to us.’

He holds onto the tapes with careful hands, feels anticipation grow in his chest at the thought of being able to see his mother alive, even if through a recording.

‘Can we watch it now?’

‘Sure, why not,’ he smiles as he leads the way downstairs into the living room. The video player is long outdated now with DVD’s and Blu-Ray’s gaining popularity in the modern world but he thinks it’s there more for sentimental reasons than anything else.

‘How do I say my name?’ He asks while his dad rewinds a video back to the very beginning. He noticed his name written on all of the tape labels and also on the photos but he can’t, not for the life of him, begin to even pronounce it.

The older man winces and chuckles as he presses play and settles on the couch next to him. ‘You preferred to be called Stiles.’

‘Stiles? _Stiles_ Stilinski?’ He repeats incredulously.

‘Well,’ his dad trails off, looking equal parts sheepish and back in high spirits.

When Dylan finds out how his first name is pronounced he decides that Stiles actually sounds about 100% better.

\--

After months and months of processing, going through the motions and hearings, the trial finally comes to a close. Everything in the news reports say that the case is in favor of the Stilinski’s but Stiles doesn’t want to count on speculation – he wants to hear what the jury decides and he wants to know what punishment the judge deems fit to assign on Gerard.

Everybody is quiet as a female juror stands with her announcement, lips thin and unyielding as she speaks with a clear and decisive voice. Stiles holds his breath and tries not to crush his dad's hand in his grip.

‘We, the jury, find the defendant, Gerard Argent, guilty of the charge of attempted murder in the second degree and kidnapping in the first degree.’

The judge has to pound the gavel repeatedly to quiet down the noise of celebration. It’s said that this is one of the few cases that will go down in Beacon Hills’ history but Stiles doesn’t care; he just wants everybody to shut up so he can hear the next part.

‘Gerard Argent, you are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.’

For the first time Stiles can _breathe_.

\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOAH!! ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!! And that'll include a short epilogue as well. =D YAY!!
> 
> Also, I'm thinking of a sequel? Don't know if I'll actually go through with it since I'm better at saying than I am at doing. >_> PFFT.


	9. Chapter 9

 

\-----

**Chapter 9**

\-----

What’s in a name? Everything.

He’s not used to his real name and it takes days and weeks and months of repetition, repetition, repetition until it sinks into his head that his name is Stiles, not Dylan. Still, occasionally the thought slips. Occasionally he doesn’t realize his dad is calling for him until he stops calling him “Stiles” and reverts back to “Dylan” just to get his attention. He can see that it hurts his father every time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he bites his lip at the tired look on his dad’s face, a combination of long hours at work and the unintentional stress coming from the both of them trying to learn how to live with another person in their lives again when they’d been alone for so, so long.

‘It’s okay, son, you don’t have to apologize,’ he speaks softly as he settles in the seat next to him at the dining table. ‘You grew up answering to Dylan for a long time; it’ll take a while.’

He nods, but he wishes it didn’t have to be the case. He can see the increased stress lines on his face and the new sprouting of grey hair around his temple. Stiles sometimes thinks about going away, about leaving because it might be better than if he stayed but he knows it’ll devastate them both if he were to disappear deliberately.

‘Did you want something? When you called me?’ He asks and closes the family album shut. Sometimes he spends hours just staring at the photos, willing for some form of memory to return. He doesn’t get lucky.

‘I was wondering where you wanted to go for dinner tonight.’

Stiles knows his dad is working the late shift for the entire week but he always makes time to come back home to take him out for lunch or dinner and the very occasional breakfast. He appreciates the effort but the thought of going out for another round of diner food makes his stomach curdle.

‘Oh, I was thinking that maybe I could cook instead,’ he tries not to finish off in a question but he knows he failed in that respect. He fights off the cringe when a look of surprise lights up on the older man’s face.

‘You can cook?’

‘I’m not a culinary expert, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I can cook. A little.’

John smiles as he pats his son on his shoulder. ‘What were you thinking of?’

‘I saw a pack of steaks in the freezer this morning after you dropped me off. We can have that with the potatoes you’re hiding in the back of the pantry.’

‘We have potatoes?’

Stiles gives him an unimpressed look but he catches the glint of amusement on his dad’s face as he gets up to go into the kitchen. ‘I’ll start the grill, you can handle the potatoes.’

‘I hope you like them mashed, because I can make a pretty mean mash.’

‘We got any mushrooms?’ He asks as he picks up the pack from the sink, still on the little side of cold but at least isn’t frozen, and starts for the back porch where the barbeque is sitting.

‘Yeah,’ he says, pushing himself away from the table towards the kitchen, ‘they’re in the vegetable drawer.’

‘Then I see your mean mash and I raise it with my groovy gravy.’

Stiles moans in dismay and considers hiding in the pantry with the potatoes for the rest of his life. He thinks it’ll make a tight fit. ‘Oh, my god. No.’

‘What? I’ll have you know you used to think I was cool.’

‘Keyword: _was_ ,’ he retorts without bite and can’t help the smile on his face as he listens to John laugh only to change to cursing at the grill when it refuses to light up.

Names, for the moment, are a tricky subject but it’s a work in progress. Their interactions occasionally start off a bit rocky but it eventually smoothes out as they try to relearn how to live with one another. It’s not perfect but Stiles wouldn’t trade this life for his old one, ever.

\--

Scott, as it turns out, lives just down the road from him. 5 minutes by car or a leisurely 15 minute stroll away. Scott, the boy who he was once joined at the hip to and Scott, the werewolf who’s currently dating a hunter, are actually one and the same, as it also turns out.

He sometimes feels claustrophobic with how small the town actually is.

There are about five houses left between him and the address his dad wrote down for him but Scott is already running out of the house and tripping over his own feet in his haste to see him.

He stops walking and watches as the boy nurse his forehead after running straight into his mailbox as opposed to around it. The image is a complete turnaround from the werewolf he allied himself with in the earlier months of his arrival into Beacon Hills. He wants to laugh.

Surprisingly, he does.

Scott frowns at him, obviously hurt by his lack of concern, but it turns into an eventual smile until he’s laughing along with him. He gets up from the ground after a while and jogs to meet him halfway, his footfalls steady as he makes his way towards him.

‘Hey, um, hi,’ Scott greets awkwardly, his attitude a complete one-eighty compared to their initial meeting. ‘I tried to see you but your dad said—I mean, it’s not like I—no, no, actually, what I really want to say first is that I’m sorry.’

‘What for? It’s not like either of us knew,’ he shrugs, trying to come off as aloof but knows his rapidly beating heart is giving everything away. He sighs when Scott begins to look even more upset, ‘look, we got off on the wrong foot but 12 years is a long time to forget about somebody.’

‘I didn’t forget. It’s just that…’ he trails off, looking down at the cracked pavement between them as he shuffles his weight from foot to foot.

‘I’m not the 5 year old kid you once knew,’ he fills in when Scott looks agonized over how to word things properly.

He clenches his jaw and nods. ‘Yeah…’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ Stiles tells him and sees tears gather in Scott’s eyes, the hurt and defeat in his posture. But he’s not saying this to upset him more than he’s already feeling; he’s saying this in an effort to explain, in hopes to be understood. ‘I don’t remember you, I don’t remember my dad, I don’t remember my mum and I don’t even know who I am anymore. My dad sometimes calls me Dylan just to get my attention because I still haven’t figured out my actual name is Stiles, yet. Every morning I wake up in my bedroom I start to panic because it hasn’t yet registered that I have a _home_. I still go to sleep with a knife under my pillow because it beats accidentally shooting my dad in case he comes in to check in on me,’ he draws in a shaky breath at the thought, remembering the shallow cut he made on his dad’s cheek when he came back at almost 4 o’clock in the morning after a late shift at the station.

Stiles shakes his head, feeling like an insecure child all over again as he looks down at his scuffed shoes. ‘Sometimes I still find myself waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me.’

A soft noise escapes Scott and he sees a pair of sneakers enter his line of vision, the next thing he knows is that he’s got arms wrapped around him and Scott is crying into his shoulder.

He tenses momentarily, feeling awkward as the other strengthens his hug around him. He knows he’s shaking, not from fear but from nerves, and he’s glad that Scott’s senses are keen enough to know how to differentiate those two emotions. He’s slow on the uptake but he eventually returns the hug, giving it as good as he’s getting.

‘You know,’ Scott says after a while, ‘after I got bitten I used to think about how I’d tell you that I’m a werewolf. You were pretty cool about it most of the time.’

Stiles snorts into his shoulder and pats him on the back. ‘What was your worst-case scenario?’

‘You screamed like a girl and ran away.’

He rolls his eyes at the smile he can hear in Scott’s voice. ‘It’s a good thing I’m not this imaginary version you’ve got in your head. The world would be such a sad place,’ he smirks as he lets go but keeps an arm over his shoulder as they walk towards the McCall residence.

‘Yeah, it would be.’

\--

Meeting the pack again as Stiles Stilinski feels different. It’s as if he’s seeing them through a different set of eyes and he’s not quite sure of what the proper protocol is now that everything he dragged into Beacon Hills with him is over and done with. Are reintroductions in order? Is he required to make friendly now that he’s not using them for a personal vendetta? How does a person go from the status of enemy hunter to a possible ally?

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking towards the Hale house until he sees Scott standing three paces in front of him with a worried look on his face. ‘It’s only going to be weird if you make it weird. Just be,’ he shrugs, ‘you know, normal.’

‘Oh, should I go back and pack a couple of knives, guns and wolfsbane on me, then? You know, since you told me to be _normal_.’

He hears Erica snort before going down in a fit of giggles. Isaac looks amused while Allison’s eyebrows are furrowed in confusion but she starts smiling after he explains to her what had just been said. At least Boyd and Derek don’t look at him like a threat.

‘Smart-ass.’ Scott scowls at him half-heartedly as he stands beside him and bumps into his shoulder to get him walking again. As soon as they’re within a decent enough range that even Allison can hear without straining her ears Scott does the honors of introducing him to them. ‘Hey, guys, this is the friend I used to hang out with a lot.’

‘Wow, and here I thought he was a figment of your imagination,’ Erica smirks playfully at him, finally over her giggling fit.

Stiles cuts in before Scott can protest. ‘Can’t compare to the real thing – he thought I’d run away screaming like a girl if I found out about werewolves.’

Isaac scoffs. ‘Shows how much he knows.’

Allison gets up from where she’d been sitting on the last step of the porch and takes his hand into hers. ‘Hi, Stiles, it’s nice to finally meet you. Properly, that is.’

‘Wait. _Stiles_ Stilinski?’ Boyd says again with incredulity coloring his tone.

‘I know,’ he sighs despairingly, ‘do not question the mind of a 5-year old who was desperate enough to even think that “Stiles” made a better substitute than his legal name.’

‘What _is_ your legal name?’ Isaac asks curiously.

‘I honestly don’t even know how to pronounce it,’ he says with a shake of his head. He catches Derek smirking at him like he knows something he doesn’t. Stiles seriously hopes he’s just overreacting – Derek can’t possibly know. ‘So, uh…you know, not that I don’t dig the haunted house gig, but why are we hanging out in the middle of the woods next to a building that’s about to fall on its hinges?’

‘All the better that no one will hear you scream, my dear.’

Everybody turns their heads to Derek and the uncharacteristic line he’d just delivered. It’s Stiles who eventually retorts with a sound, ‘no, seriously, we’re not going there.’

Erica snorts again and Allison starts laughing with her.

He’s never really had friends his own age. He’s never really had friends, ever. But as he laughs along with a mixed group of werewolves, humans and hunters he finds they’re not as difficult to get along as he’d previously imagined. He thinks the dynamics will change one day, maybe sooner than he expects, but for now he’s happy with the way things are.

\--

Stiles Stilinski’s life stopped at the age of 5 and there are no records of him after his kidnapping that wasn’t an update on his missing persons’ report. He finds that he doesn’t really know what to do while his dad is at work and Scott is attending high school with the others. He spends most of the entire day re-watching the videos his dad gave him and thumbing his way through the photo album.

He didn’t really have what most people would consider a “life” before but he’s never felt so directionless until now.

The highest level of education he has to his name is just that of a kindergartener – he never finished his first year of elementary, not that he can even recall what he learned during the time he studied there. Everything he currently knows is something he learned on his own or through watching others. He’s got a good enough grasp of mathematics, science, business economics, mythology and folklore, although the last two aren’t so much basic as it is more of a college course subject. The only sports he’s good at is running, a mixed assortment of martial arts, knife-handling and shooting; both with guns and with compound bows.

He sighs and wonders what he should do with his life. His dad hasn’t pressured him into doing anything he’s not ready for but he thinks he should at least consider getting his GED before planning out the rest of his future.

When John finally comes back home after completing a double-shift at the station Stiles tells him about his enrolment into a few online courses over a meal of grilled salmon, green and red pepper couscous and a side of salad.

‘So soon?’ The older man asks around a mouthful of greens.

He stops before he can shovel in a forkful of couscous. ‘What?’

He waves his hand around, dislodging a bit of mesclun salad from the tines of the fork over the table and onto the floor. ‘It’s just that I thought you’d be taking it easy for a while longer. The only reason why I haven’t said anything yet is because I wanted you to settle down first.’

Stiles perches his knife and fork on the edges of his plate as he speaks. ‘We’re already at the start of autumn, you know that, right? I’ve been here for 5 months now, almost 6.’

‘Oh,’ his dad utters with his mouth slack and a look of surprise on his face. ‘It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.’

He swallows, remembering how they celebrated his real birthday just a couple of months ago and how truly shocked he was to learn that August 13 wasn’t actually his birthday – it was the day he went missing. ‘Dad, I’m 18 and I’ve never been to school.’

‘You—’ the fork clatters noisily onto the table as he covers his face with his hand, suddenly speechless and overcome with grief, as if he can’t bear to look at the teenage boy sitting across from him.

He rubs his hands along the fabric of his jeans, feeling embarrassed, anxious and suddenly worthless. ‘Dad, I—’

‘You made the best of what you had in the circumstances that you were given,’ he tells him with a fierce look in his eyes, glassy with unshed tears. ‘And you know what? I’m really proud of you, son.’

His breath catches a little as he stutters over a work of thanks. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to being called “son” – it fills a gap in his chest, a hole that had stayed emptied for far too long. He blinks rapidly and tries to finish up the rest of his dinner without crying into his food.

If the older man’s sniffs are anything to go by then he knows his dad is trying to do the same thing, too.

\--

Everybody is in their final year of high school. Stiles paces himself with the online courses and studies with Scott and the others occasionally. Sometimes when they want to take a break they’ll go somewhere into the preserve for a walk which usually degenerates into a game of chase.

Boyd is “it” which actually means trouble because, as Stiles found out earlier, he’s scarily good at tracking. He’s quiet about it, too, unlike the others who tend to moan and groan and make all sorts of racket as they run around trying to get the others.

Stiles settles by a rocky outcrop downwind of the werewolves. He can’t do anything about his heartbeat if they hear him but at least they can’t smell him. He lost track of Allison somewhere but he doesn’t doubt that she’ll be taking advantage of her skills as a hunter to hide away from the werewolves.

He pays attention to the direction of where the wind is blowing, makes sure his scent is carried away from where the werewolves are and not towards them. Of course, this only works when he’s the one downwind, not the other way around.

Stiles hears Derek before he sees him, a courtesy rather than carelessness. He knows how quiet Derek can be and the fact that he chooses to expose himself to him speaks levels of their growing trust with one another. It’s amazing how forming alliances with the local pack can erase any and every hint of hostility between them.

‘They won’t hear us,’ is what Derek decides to open the conversation with. Most people would take this the wrong way but from Derek it means privacy.

‘Then they’ll need more training,’ he says as he settles into a more comfortable sitting position rather than an awkward crouch.

‘Boyd and Scott both have a better sense of smell. Isaac and Erica are the ones with exceptional hearing, even for a werewolf, but at this point they’re too far away to catch whatever we’re saying,’ he explains as he takes a seat on a large boulder a moderate four paces away.

Stiles decides to take advantage of this rare respite and ask Derek what’s been on his mind for a long time. He takes in a deep breath and exhales. ‘Did you know? About me? About who I was.’

He shakes his head. ‘Not at first, no.’

‘When did you figure it out? Would you have told me eventually?’ He asks and tries not to wring his fingers together in a show of nerves but he knows the slight increase in his heart rate has already given him away.

‘Eventually, yes.’

Stiles tilts his head at the lack of continuation. ‘And the first part?’

Derek stares at him in consideration and by the time he speaks again Stiles has already played through 5 different scenarios in his head; most of them bad. ‘It was the day you and Allison went to do recon. The other’s left the apartment a while later but I stayed behind. There was something about your scent that was familiar and I didn’t figure it out until that night but by then you were already gone.’

He sighs. It isn’t the worst idea he’s had – he’d assumed Derek knew from the moment he stepped on Beacon Hills’ soil, which is a ridiculous thought but he’s not lacking in imagination, at least. ‘What shit timing.’ Even if Derek had told him he doubted it would’ve changed anything. He would’ve still done almost as exactly as he’d done.

‘It worked for the better,’ he says consolingly.

‘Yeah,’ he nods in agreement. Everything turned out almost perfectly. He has a father, a family, friends of his own and is slowly on his way to gaining his GED. He can’t help the smile on his face at how wild and drastic his life has turned around for him. ‘Yeah, it did.’

Boyd and Isaac find them eventually, having double-teamed together so they can track him down while Scott, Erica and Allison went a different direction in search of him. Turns out he’s the last one to be found.

‘What do I win?’

He sees Isaac trade a look with Boyd who trades another look with Erica once she’s caught up with them. They’re all smirking at him and he’s mentally preparing for the worst prize ever when Scott grins and says, ‘Curly fries!’

A pleased hum escapes him. ‘Awesome.’

“Awesome” turns out to be an overstatement because everybody had decided to buy him a serving of curly fries, even Derek, so he’s now sitting at the diner with 6 baskets of the greasy potatoes and he feels his stomach rumble in sheer horror.

‘I’m going to die of starch poisoning,’ he announces as he picks up the first of many curly fries.

‘Don’t be dramatic; they’re just curly fries,’ Erica smirks as she indulges in a chocolate fudge cake with enough chocolate sauce and whipped cream to ward off most girls. Erica is not most girls.

‘There’s going to be a headline in the papers about this – “death by curly fries”,’ he insists around a mouthful and wonders if this constitutes as an actual meal. It would, probably, but it’ll be unhealthy as fuck.

Thankfully, they don’t make him eat all 6 servings but he does somehow end up devouring a good 3 baskets of it without too much trouble. They spend pretty much the rest of the entire afternoon sitting in the cramped booth, procrastinating from homework and school studies but they all find a way to make up for the lost hours.

The year progresses too slowly and too quickly. Before anybody’s ready for it they’re all on their final stretch of examinations.

Stiles earns his GED in time for graduation. He doesn’t get to wear a gown and a cap but he knows his dad is proud of him regardless as he stands in the crowd while the others go up to claim their diplomas.

‘I’m proud of you and if your mum were here she’d say the same thing,’ his dad tells him as they both clap for Scott McCall who trips coming up the steps and almost loses his hat. Mellissa actually groans but keeps on clapping anyway.

‘Yeah,’ he smiles as he looks up at the clear blue skies. He can almost see warm brown eyes and a smile full of laughter and happiness look back down on him.

\-----  
\-----

**Epilogue (8 months later)**

\-----  
\-----

It’s dark but there are strobe lights everywhere pointing every which way. It’s distracting but he does his best to keep his focus on his surroundings, to not let the lights lead him astray. The smell of paint is cloying at his sinuses and the floor is rough in some places, smooth and slippery in others. He keeps a firm grip on his gun as he slowly makes his way towards the edge of a wall.

There’s a timer counting down in his head and he can see every second passing in a flash of red. He can hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest but it’s quiet all around him. He’s on his own, as far as he’s aware but he knows someone somewhere is watching his every move and he has to make every move count.

A whirr of gears catches his attention from his right, he takes in his target and shoots when he makes out a gun in the figure’s hand. Another tick of mechanics comes from his left and he lets go another round to the target’s chest. An additional snap of metal clicks into place from behind him and he almost shoots until he finds his original objective – a young boy waiting for his rescuer.

He lowers his guns, takes two steps towards his final mark, almost makes it to him when a figure pops up from behind the boy carrying a semi-automatic. He fires, lands a hit in-between the eyes and hears a deafening sound of a buzzer going off.

Stiles shields his eyes at the blinding overheads and hears a round of applause from beside him. He clicks the safety back on and tucks it back into his holster just as his examiner comes in from behind the painted targets with a clipboard in hand.

‘Congratulations, Mr. Stilinski, or should I say rookie Officer Stilinski. Perfect scores all the way. Beacon Hills has found itself another too-notch policeman. Like father, like son, huh?’

‘Thank you, Sir,’ he breathes a sigh of relief as he takes off the eye-protection and extends a hand in thanks.

The man chuckles at him, ‘I wouldn’t sigh just yet – the hard part is just starting.’

He laughs. ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ Compared to his other life this is a cakewalk.

\-----  
\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THERE YOU HAVE IT! THE FINAL CHAPTER FOR PART 1!! I've started a plan for the next installment - ISUEYRUIHSDSDJRBGJSV - and I'm hoping to be able to post the first chapter in a couple of weeks or so. No later than the end of the month, for sure. LET'S HOPE.
> 
> Thank you, THANK YOU, for reading this story and for your support and your positive reviews and loving kudos and subscriptions and bookmarks! Thank you so very much!
> 
> WATCH THIS SPACE!! Actually, watch the space NEXT to this. HAHAHAHHA~

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to [vrstl](http://vrstl.tumblr.com/) who made this lovely, lovely photoset for the story!! [CLICK HERE TO SEE IT!!!](http://vrstl.tumblr.com/post/62316301773/degrees-of-separation-wanderer-straggler-john)
> 
> Also, if any of you are interested you can also find me on Tumblr by clicking [here](http://straggling-wanderer.tumblr.com/). Feel free to pop by!


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